In recent years, stem cell differentiation research becomes frontier area of nature science. But due to multiple factors the basic laws of stem cells and materials interaction are hard to illustrate. Prof. Ding group developed a technique to fabricate RGD micro/nanopattern on nonfouling polyethylene glycol (PEG) background and realized the controlling of cell adhesion at both single cell and single molecular level. Based on this technique the effect of RGD nanospacing on stem cell differentiation was studied at a controlled area level for the first time. The result proved that RGD nanospacing is a regulator of stem cell differentiation. This insight is helpful for guiding designing of new biomaterials for regenerative medicine and also provided a materials technique platform for cell biology research.

This interdisciplinary research was completed under the efforts of several classes of graduate students. The work was published on Nano Letters with Doctor Xuan Wang as the first author.

Xuan Wang, Shiyu Li, Ce Yan, Peng Liu, Jiandong Ding*, Fabrication of RGD micro/nanopattern and corresponding study of stem cell differentiation, Nano Lett., 2015， 15(3): 1457-1467

Article links：http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl5049862