Time: 10:00-11:30, Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Venue:E10-306, Yungu Campus, Westlake University

Host: Mohamad Sawan, Chair Professor of School of Engineering, Westlake University

Speaker：

Prof. Zeyang Liu

Assistant Professor

Institute of Advanced Clinical Medicine

Peking University

Biography:

Zeyang Liu, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator at the Institute of Advanced Clinical Medicine, Peking University, and at the Beijing Center for Cell Homeostasis and Aging-Related Diseases. He is a recipient of the National Overseas High-Level Young Talent Program. Dr. Liu obtained his Ph.D. from Nagoya University in 2018 and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 2022 to 2025. His research focuses on biomechanics and immune engineering, particularly on how mechanical cues in the microenvironment regulate immune cell activation, metabolic reprogramming, and cell fate decisions. His work centers on the role of mechanical signals in T cell immune responses, where he has developed artificial antigen-presenting systems with tunable mechanical properties to systematically investigate how biophysical parameters influence antigen-specific T cell function. Dr. Liu has published as first or co-first author in leading journals, including Nature Biomedical Engineering (two papers), Nature Protocols, Nature Reviews Bioengineering, and Cell Biomaterials (two papers). He is currently supported by the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (Overseas) and serves on the editorial board of Med-X.

Abstract:

Adoptive T cell therapy, particularly T cell receptor–engineered T cells (TCR-T), has demonstrated significant promise in cancer immunotherapy. However, its efficacy in solid tumors remains constrained by limited ex vivo expansion, functional exhaustion, and insufficient in vivo persistence. While current manufacturing strategies primarily focus on biochemical stimulation, natural antigen-presenting cells also deliver dynamic mechanical cues—such as viscoelasticity—that critically shape T cell activation and fate decisions. In this talk, I will introduce our work on developing viscoelastic synthetic antigen-presenting cells (VxSCs) with precisely tunable stress relaxation properties. By decoupling mechanical parameters from antigen and costimulatory signal presentation, we systematically investigate how time-dependent mechanical inputs regulate TCR signaling dynamics, metabolic reprogramming, mitochondrial remodeling, and memory differentiation in TCR-T cells. Our findings reveal that the viscoelastic properties of the antigen-presenting interface function as an independent regulatory dimension, shaping T cell metabolic fitness and long-term functional potential. This work highlights an underappreciated mechanobiological mechanism in T cell regulation and suggests a new framework for engineering next-generation biomaterial platforms for adoptive T cell therapy.

Contact:

Fangyuan(Tiffany) Tian

tianfangyuan@westlake.edu.cn