Professor Liu Xiang Yang has over 29 year Academic and Industrial experiences in various academic and industrial research institutions. He received his Ph.D. degree with the cum laude title from the Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands), in 1993. After two years postdoc research, he joined the Unilever Research Port Sunlight Lab. as a Senior Scientist. Dr. Liu joined the Department of Physics, the National University of Singapore in 1999, as Associate Professor, and later Professor. Prof. Liu has authored more than 160 papers and invited book chapters, mainly in Nature, Phys. Rev. Lett., J. Am. Chem. Soc, Angew.Chem.Int Ed, Adv. Materials, etc., and delivered more than 50 keynote and/or invited talks in international conferences and workshops. Apart from this, he has also organized 12 international conferences/symposia. He received numerous awards, including the Outstanding Researcher Award 2007, NUS.
Prof. Liu’s research interests range from Biophysics, Nanosciences and technologies, crystallization, biofunctional materials, etc. His work on the crystal/fluid interfacial structure and crystallization kinetics is a landmark breakthrough in crystal growth and has received numerous citations in top journals such as Nature, Physical Review letters. Recently, he examined experimentally the dynamics of the pre- and post-nucleation stages of colloidal particles under well-defined thermodynamic conditions, and was the first to obtain direct quantitative dynamic evidence of nucleation, a phenomenon occupying scientific efforts for more than a century (Nature 429, 739 (2004)).
His analysis of the dynamics of the liquid/crystal interface at the molecular level, posed a challenge to the traditional approach in the fabrication of functional materials and his recent studies opened up a completely new direction in molecular design and the engineering of superior functional materials. The work has not only led to several outstanding publications in Nature, Physical Review Letters, J. Am. Chem. Soc., etc., but also led to some important technologies, such as nano caging and super silk engineering, for which 5 international patents have been filed/granted. As predicted by the referee of one of his Nature articles (Nature 374, 342 (1995)), “the work opens up a whole new methodology for predicting growth morphologies and interfacial parameters so-crucial across the whole of materials chemistry”.
In the area of biomiminalization, he showed that the ordered structure of ultra hard tissues with superior properties is formed by means of a self-epitaxial nucleation mediated assembly of biomineral crystallites, facilitated by special biomolecules. This landmark work, published in several top journals has led to new engineering method for robust high performance functional materials, new treatments for dental caries, osteoporosis, bone fracture etc. The excitement created in the scientific community is reflected in enthusiastic publicity worldwide, including a highlight in Nature Science Update, more than 10 keynote/invited talks in international conferences and symposia, and many citations in newsmedia worldwide.
His experiments on the freezing of water in micro-sized droplets revealed a new freezing mechanism with implications for climate change. The antifreeze mechanism by which antifreeze proteins inhibit ice formation has implications for freezing at the cellular level. His publications in prestige journals have captured worldwide attention, as reflected in Nature Physics Portal, Nature Materials Update and MRS Bulletin.
Recently, he and his group have achieved significant progress on bio/soft functional materials. The supramolecular functional materials of self-organized 3D network structures have been found to have very important applications in tissue engineering, drug deliver, nanoparticles engineering, personal care etc. Prof. Liu and his group have identified for the first time the formation mechanism of self-organized fibril network formation, and established the correlation between the network structures and the macroscopic properties. This work opens up a new direction in producing new soft functional materials based on the architecture of 3D micro/nano self-organized structure of fibrils in terms of stimuli, ie. chemicals, sound, seeding, etc. Such approaches have been adopted to identify robust technologies in the processing ultrafunctional silks with great success. The above results have not only been published in J. Am. Chem. Soc., Adv. Mat. etc., but also led to the filing of several international patents.
In addition to his academic achievements, he also provides his service to many national and international boards/Institutions, ie. an oversea referee for the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, China Changjiang Scholars Award Chair Professor, and the councilor of the International Organization for Crystal Growth, the co-executive secretary of the executive Committee of the Asian Society for Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology, the Managing editor of BIOPHYSICS REVIEWS AND LETTERS, and the co-Editor-in-Chief of INNOVATION.
