Defects can rule the properties of a crystal. This effect is particularly intriguing in atom-thick low-dimensional materials, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes where new chemistry and physics may arise due to strong coupling of electrons, excitons, phonons, and spin at the atomic defects.

Fluorescent quantum defects (a.k.a., organic color centers) are covalent functional defects that can be incorporated into semiconducting nanomaterials (Brozena et al, Nat Rev Chem 2019).

We are working on developing synthetic strategies to engineer nanomaterials with such defects and investigating exciton photophysics and biomedical applications of quantum defects (Kim et al, Chem 2018).

We are interested in connecting biology and nano-engineering to better understand biological processes by expanding the chemical biology research tools while inspiring the engineering communities to develop approaches for interrogating cancer biology (Kim et al, Nat Rev Cancer 2023).

We develop and implement novel bioanalytical nanosensors to monitor biochemical processes within live cells and tissues with focusing problems in lysosome biology and autophagy (Kim et al, Nat Chem Biol 2023).

We are building near-infrared fluorescence spectroscopy-based bioinstrumentation to facilitate biological discovery and high-throughput target screening.

We are interested in developing sensor technologies to improve disease detection.

We build implantable sensor devices for non-invasive, longitudinal monitoring of disease biomarkers and liquid biopsy type-sensor technologies that use artificial intelligence to accurately identify disease states (Kim et al, Nat Biomed Eng 2023).

We employ such diagnostic sensor technologies to facilitate biomarker discovery and understand the molecular mechanism of signal transduction.

We always love to brainstorm new projects, too.