News

September/2026

Super happy to share our recent review in Nature Reviews Physics, led by two rising ‘SU‘per stars, Yuyan Su and Nicholas Su, and in collaboration with Sangwoo Kim, Alexandre Persat and Hagan Bayley. Microscale droplets for mechanobiology! 
 
‘Neural signal processing in an ionic gel‘. Read more about our News & Views article on Nature Electronics.
 
We are glad to announce that we have been awarded the s’EPanouir-FLourish Fund for Teaching Development for our course Microfabrication (MICRO-303 and MICRO-304)! Our project aims to redesign a challenging bachelor’s course full of technical details and chemistry, physics, materials and so much interdisciplinary knowledge. Our project follows the s’EPanouir–FLourish initiative of EPFL to improve student learning under the impact of AI. Please follow us for more updates!
 
We are happy to host Prof. Bozhi Tian from the University of Chicago to visit EPFL and give a keynote lecture at BioEngineering Day 2026!
 

August/2026

Happy to share our recent work published in Science Advances in collaboration with Prof Liu from SYSU. We link drug-loaded microdroplets to T cells through tumour-responsive lipid linkages to coordinate vascular normalisation and T cell memory differentiation, enhancing antitumor immunity. Read more here: link.
 
‘Microdroplets jam together to mimic soft tissues‘. Read more about our News & Views article on Nature Materials.
 

July/2026

Our new paper is online now on Nature Reviews Bioengineering! What is Bioiontronics? Our seminal Review answers why this emerging field will impact future medicine by summarising its mechanisms, prototypes, recent breakthroughs, and open challenges. Read more here: link.

Congratulations to Puguang for getting the Enable award from the Technology Transfer Office (TTO). We will have open internship positions on iontronic power sources and device prototyping at BION. Please contact Prof Zhang and Dr Peng directly to learn more.

BION 2026 retreat to Domaine Bovy!
 
Congratulations to Farouk for finishing his MSc thesis project at BION!
 
We are super happy to host the 1st NYPI workshop at EPFL with Prof Kavokine and Prof Emmerich. Thanks to all participants and the great support from SNSF,  STI, and ISIC. Looking forward to the flourishing of nanofluidic iontronics and future NYPI events!
 
We will host the Nanofluidics Young Investigators Workshop from July 13th to 16th. Please check the workshop website here for more information!
 

June/2026

We’re happy to host Prof. Shiyang Tang from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and Prof. Chengchen Zhang from the University of Southampton, UK, to give IEM Seminar Series: Intelligent Microfluidics for Biointerfaces.

We received the Young Investigator Grant from the Horten Health Foundation, a Swiss philanthropy fostering medical innovation and translation for better patient care and outcomes. Cheers!
Open PhD positions will be announced here. 

 
We received the Research Network Grant from the Leading House Asia Pacific! Cheers!
 

May/2026

‘Signals through salt: Building machines that use the language of biology‘. Read more about our comment article on Physics Today.
 
We’re happy to host Prof. Jean-Christophe Baret from the University of Bordeaux, France, to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Towards photosynthetic synthetic cells.
 
Yujia gave two invited speeches at the Woodstock Bookshop Festival 2026: Science Festival and the Ellison Institute of Technology at Oxford, UK.
 
Our work on ‘Flexoelectric effect in flexible 2D nanofluidic channels‘ has been published in Faraday Discussions.
 
Jiaqi Liu starts his PhD journey at BION!
 

April/2026

Congratulations to Yujia, representing the BION and IEM, on winning the Young Scientist Award at the IEEE NEMS 2026 conference in Chengdu!
 
Yujia gave an invited speech at the IEEE NEMS 2026 (IEEE 21st International Conference on Nano/Micro Engineered and Molecular Systems) in Chengdu, China.
 
Our work on ‘Flexoelectric effect in flexible 2D nanofluidic channels‘ was presented by Yujia in the Faraday Discussion on Molecular and ion flows through angstrom-scale channels at Manchester, UK.
 

February/2026

Yujia gave an invited speech at the EPFL Engineering Research Day.
 
We’re happy to host Prof. Michael Mayer from the Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Power Sources Inspired by Electric Fish.
 
Dr. Puguang Peng begins his postdoc research at BION!
 

January/2026

Congrats to Yidan Lyu and Yuyan Su! Our Review paper on Bioinspiration for Bioiontronics has been published in Iontronics. Ions and small molecules form the basic language of biology, enabling numerous biological signalling activities. Biology has used the language of ions since the beginning of life, and scientists are only now beginning to catch up. In this work, we summarise ionic phenomena across different biological scales and examine their ionic mechanisms. We further summarise the bioinspired endeavours of bioiontronics, including energy harvesting and storage, sensing, signal processing, and biointerfaces. Finally, we outline the potential applications and challenges of mimicking natural ionic processes. The Review serves both as a source of information and as a benchmark and encouragement for further bioiontronic developments.
 
Congrats to Baptiste Tankwa for giving an oral presentation at the IEEE MEMS conference on MEA designs for dropletronic circuits.
 
Yujia delivered an invited speech at the ‘frontiers2026’ symposium on NanoBioEngineering, organised jointly by EPFL, the University of Tokyo (UTokyo), and Science Tokyo (ISCT).
 
Happy New Year to all BION fellows! New BION Logo 2026!
 

December/2025

We had Christmas dinner at Luigia to celebrate the achievements in 2025.
 
We’re happy to host Prof. Di Wei from the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Controlled Charge Flow in Nanoconfined Iontronics.
 
Our Review paper on neuromorphic iontronic devices based on soft ionic conductors has been published in Chemical Society Reviews. In this work, we introduce the functional roles and electrical signalling of axons, synapses, and neurons, thereby defining the performance requirements for neuromorphic iontronic devices (NIDs). We then summarise means for controlling ion transport in SICs and discuss feasible approaches for constructing SIC-based NIDs, including structural and interfacial engineering, device architectures, and dropletronic techniques. Finally, recent advances in NIDs are reviewed, and their prospects in human–machine interaction and brain-like computing are discussed along with the remaining challenges.
 
Our first independent paper from BION has been published online today in Chemical Reviews. We provide a comprehensive overview of iontronic devices and systems, and highlight emerging applications in bioiontronics, neuromorphic computing, energy harvesting, water treatments, and environmental sustainability. Despite significant advancements, we propose that challenges remain in achieving the desired ion selectivity, efficient ionic signal transduction, and seamless integration of iontronics with electronics and biology.
 

November/2025

We received two new funding sources, one from the SNSF COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), and the other from the Novartis Foundation for Medical-Biological Research. Open PhD positions have been announced here, position 1 and position 2!
 
We’re happy to host Prof. Minshen Zhu from the TU Chemnitz to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Micro-Origami Meets Batteries: Pushing Energy Storage Boundary below 1 mm2.
 

October/2025

Congratulations to Jiabei on getting the SNSF Spark fund!

Yujia gave an inaugural lecture, representing the BION! Thanks to all the group members, collaborators, friends, and funding agencies. The recording is available here.

Congratulations to Yujia, representing the BION and IEM, on winning the Young Scientist Award at the iCANX Global Summit in Hong Kong!
 
We’re happy to host Prof. Andy Sarles from the University of Tennessee to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: Biomolecular synapses and neurons for neuromorphic signal processing at the edge of biology.
 

September/2025

We received our first SNSF Project Funding!!! Open PhD positions have been announced here.
 
Yujia gave a keynote speech at the International Workshop on Bionic Engineering (IWBE 2025).
 
Yujia was invited to participate in the ARIA workshop on Scalable Neural Interfaces.
 
Yide Harris Jiao and Mathilde Guiot finished their projects at BION!
Mathilde also gave a wonderful presentation at the 2025 Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Program.
 
Baptiste Tankwa, Alain Aziz and Virginia d’Adamo joined the group! Welcome to all!

August/2025

1st group retreat with LIMS1 to Empa Thun.
 
Oskar Möhrle finished his summer project at BION!

July/2025

Mathilde Guiot, Yidan Lyu, Oskar Möhrle, and Jiaxin Zhu joined the group! Welcome to all!
 
Yujia gave a keynote speech at the 7th International Conference on Nanoenergy and Nanosystems (NENS 2025).

June/2025

Maeva Anfossi finished her semester project!

Three new labs, BM 32228/3231/3233, are ready to use!

Yuyan Su joined the group!

May/2025

Yide (Harris) Jiao joined the group!

Our lab interview is online!

“Learning to question the science behind the reactions was pivotal”

We’re honoured to host Prof. Hagan Bayley from the University of Oxford to give a joint IBI and IEM seminar: “The Remarkable Science of Nanopores: From Gene Sequencing to Organ Repair”.

Shulang Shen joined the group!

April/2025

Yujia was invited to give a presentation at the 2025 MAIN Lecture Series at TU Chemnitz.

Yujia gave a public speech at the 2025 Build-a-Cell seminar. The recording is here.

We’re thrilled to host Prof. Yunlong Zhao from Imperial College London to give an IEM Distinguished Lecturers Seminar: “Bio-inspired design of Integrated Mesh Electronics, Transistor Probe and Micro-Power Units for Multifunctional Physiological Interrogation and Sustainable Operation”.

Dr Jiabei Luo and Maeva Céline Anfossi joined the group!

Congratulations to Antoine, representing the BION, on winning the Best Poster Award at the first Bioelectricity Cluster 2025 conference at Oxford!

05/02/2025

Does nature hold the key to our future energy solutions? We chatted to Oxford Sparks and now you can listen to the podcast here to see how our research might inspire the batteries of the future.

What can batteries of the future learn from eels?

01/2025

Antoine Théo Remy joined the group!

01/2025

The Zhang group opens in the EPFL!

06/12/2024

Our dropletronics research is published on Science today and reported by Le Monde!

19/09/2024

Yujia has been appointed as Tenure Track Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Microengineering at the School of Engineering, EPFL starting in January 2025. Read the nomination here!