Research

Yaoping has developed an ultra-high-throughput liquid biopsy technique based on a 2.5D mesh of high porosity, during her PhD period in Prof. Wei Wang Group, Peking University. This technique has demonstrated outstanding performance in rare (as low as 1) cell separation from large-volume (>10 mL) samples including whole blood, broncho alveolar lavage fluid (BALF), urine, pleural fluid, sputum etc. This technique was awarded the Special Gold Medal in the 46th International Exhibition of Inventions, Geneva, 2018, and the Best Innovation Award at In-vitro Diagnosis Technology Summit 2018, Shanghai, China, and has been used in many universities and companies.

Easy handling of the high-porosity mesh and gravity-driven filtration at high throughput.

The schematic of Circulating tumor cell (CTC) separation from whole blood.

Yaoping now works in a multidisciplinary project between Han group and Prof. Lih Feng Cheow Group in Biomedical Engineering, NUS. She focuses on the low-abundance pathogen separation from body fluids based on the micro/nanopore filtration. She explores both the principal mechanism in filtration for pathogen separation and the standardization of sample preparation for POCT of blood infection. The research motivation and target is to promote the personalized therapy in precision medicine.

Selected publications:
1. Yaoping Liu, Tingyu Li, Mingxin Xu, et al., A high-throughput liquid biopsy for rapid rare cell separation from large-volume samples, Lab on a Chip, 2019, 19(1), 68−78, Back cover.
2. Wenbo Zhou#, Yaoping Liu#, Menglong Ran#, et al., Rapid liquid biopsy for Mohs surgery: rare target cell separation from surgical margin lavage fluid with a high recovery rate and selectivity, Lab on a Chip, 2019, 19(6), 974−983, Back cover.
3. Yaoping Liu#, *, Han Xu#, Wangzhi Dai, et al., 2.5-dimensional Parylene C micropore array with large area and high porosity for high-throughput particle and cell separations, Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2018, 4(1): 13 (1−12).
4. Yaoping Liu, Lingqian Zhang, Chi Mo, et al., Caulking polydimethylsiloxane molecular networks by thermal chemical vapor deposition of Parylene−C, Lab on a Chip, 2016, 16(21): 4220−4229.
5. Yaoping Liu, Lingqian Zhang, Wengang Wu, et al., Restraining non-specific adsorption of protein using Parylene C-caulked polydimethylsiloxane, Biomicrofluidics, 2016, 10(2), 024126 (1−11).