Xiaohan Zhang · Postdoctoral Researcher · Juewen Liu Lab, University of Waterloo
Molecular recognition at the interface of aptamer discovery, sequence–structure computation and functional materials: one line from SELEX at the bench, through the software that interprets the selection, to sensors and delivery vehicles.
Fig. 4 of the paper
Figs. 1 & 2 of the paper
Fig. 6 of the paper
Also co-first author of Biomedical applications of nanozymes: an enzymology perspective (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2025; 105 citations). The full record lists all 30 papers with Google Scholar counts, filterable by author role, topic and year.
Capture-SELEX and tissue-SELEX for DNA aptamers against small molecules and tissue targets: tobramycin, carbendazim, acetamiprid, cellulose, BPA and cornea so far.
ThT-based and FRET light-up fluorescent sensors for therapeutic drug monitoring, food safety and environmental analysis.
Clustering SELEX pools, folding under the ionic conditions of the assay, and grouping aptamers by loop structure — the four tools below came out of this thread.
Aptamer–AuNP conjugates for targeted cell recognition, tissue staining and ocular drug delivery.
Gold and silver nanoparticles, plasmonic photocatalysts, nanozymes and carrier-free drug-delivery platforms.
Binding affinity, structure and kinetics by ITC, NMR, CD and fluorescence spectroscopy.
Sequencing reads go in at step 1; families, folds and loop-structure groups come out at step 3. The Kd tool is separate — it fits titration data from the bench, whatever produced the aptamer. The same four tools run as one connected pipeline at aptapilot.com.
Family preview · real output
Finds the sequence families in a SELEX pool and writes the report — trim, cluster, and export in one run.
G-quadruplex fold · real output
Predicts how a DNA aptamer folds in your binding buffer rather than in 1 M NaCl, and draws any G-quadruplex it finds.
Scope: DNA aptamers under typical assay ionic conditions. It differs from m-fold / UNAFold by adding explicit divalent-ion and G-quadruplex terms and exposing every parameter in the GUI — how it differs. Output is best-effort; confirm G-quadruplex topology by CD — limits.
Loop-motif family · real output
Groups aptamers by the loop they fold into, so sequences with different stems but the same loop architecture land in one family.
Fitted curve · real output
Turns a titration table into a Kd with the quadratic binding model — in the browser, with nothing uploaded.
A daily-scoring feed of aptamer papers from PubMed, OpenAlex and bioRxiv. Each paper gets a composite score from journal impact factor, citation velocity, social signal and recency, across six subtopics: biosensors, cancer, food safety, infectious disease, neurodegeneration and therapeutics.
Window 14 days · Six subtopics · Cumulative top-paper pages per topicFunctional nucleic acids, nanozymes and aptamer-based biosensors. The group page lists current projects, members and publications.
Group page ↗All 30 papers with Google Scholar counts, software with copyright registrations, manuscripts refereed, five undergraduate researchers trained, awards and programme support.
Open the CV →Reprints, unpublished data and tool feedback on request. The full publication record is online with citation metrics.
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