Contact Professor Zhugen Yang

Areas of expertise

  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Biosensors & Diagnostics
  • Environment and Health
  • Food Safety
  • Instrumentation, Sensors and Measurement Science
  • Monitoring and Environmental Informatics
  • Water Science and Engineering

Background

Zhugen Yang is a Professor of Biosensing and Environmental Health, leading a UKCRIC-funded Advanced Sensors Laboratory for water-environment-health-nexus since 2019. He joined Cranfield University as a Lecturer in 2019 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2022 and Professor in 2023, after being a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow in 2018. He has received three prestigious Fellowships/awards for different career stages, including the Leverhulme Research Leadership Awards (2023-2028), UKRI NERC Personal Fellowship (2018-2021), and EU Marie Curie Fellow (2013-15). He completed his postdoc at the University of Cambridge, and was an EU Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Bath, after receiving his PhD at the University of Lyon (Ecole Centrale) in France, MSc (Sun Yat-sen University, SYSU), and BEng (Harbin Institute of Technology, HIT) in China.

His research has been sponsored by a variety of sources (>£7m, PI on £5m) including UKRI (EPSRC, NERC, BBSRC, MRC), The Leverhulme Trust, The Royal Society, The Royal Academy of Engineering, industrial and governmental sectors (e.g., UKHSA, Home Office, Defra, EA), leading to over 80 referred articles (including Nature Water, PNAS, Nature Communications, ACS Nano, Adv Fucnt Mat, ES&T, Water Res, H=36 as of 3/2024), several UK/PCT patents and many invited/keynote talks at international conferences. The key technology around low-cost sensors has led to a spin-out company at Cranfield.

Dr Yang is recognized globally for his work in developing a low-cost origami paper device for the rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases, especially recently on the rapid testing of sewage for early warning of COVID-19 within the population, which is part of the UK National Wastewater Surveillance Program (N-WESP). His work has received many national and international awards including a recent James J Morgan ACS ES&T Early Career Award- Honorable Mention, featuring in Science, and numerous media coverages (e.g., BBC News, The Washington Post, etc.). The origami-paper device is currently featured at the London Science Museum.

Research opportunities

We now have the opening: 3 PDRAs (11 years FTE, two filled ) and 2 fully-funded PhD studentships on sensing wastewater for public health funded by Leverhulme Trust Research Leadership Awards.

PDRA: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DFJ243/research-assistant-or-research-fellow

PhDs: https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DFC813/phd-studentship-sensing-wastewater-for-real-time-public-health

We are consistently recruiting talented researchers/students in the areas of sensors, microfluidics, paper-based devices, molecular diagnostics, water quality, environmental health, and wastewater-based epidemiology, please get in touch for discussion on the potential funding opportunities. We typically recruit 2-3 students each year to ensure quality supervision. Please be in touch for discussion on self-funded or third-source funded opportunities.

Researcher students:

[1] PhD candidates (3-4 years); [2] MSc by Research (12 months lab work to get MSc, optional to extend two years more for a PhD degree; [3] Visiting research students/placements/internships (no less than three months, ideally 6 months or more)

Postdoc, Fellowship, and Visiting Scholar: We are always keen to support talented scientists as Research Fellows, and visiting Fellows/scholars to apply for a third funding source (e.g. CSC, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Commission 1851, UK Newton fellowship, EU Marie Curie Fellowship) to explore exciting scientific research.

Current activities

Dr Yang is currently leading the UKCRIC-funded Advanced Sensors Laboratory at Cranfield University. His multidisciplinary team on Advanced Sensors for Water-Environment-Health nexus focuses on the development of low-cost, rapid, and point-of-use sensors and devices for environmental science (e.g. microbial contamination in drinking water), public health (e.g. infectious, illicit drugs), and biomedical diagnostics (e.g. infectious disease and cancer). The major grants are listed below.

Dr Yang serves as editor of a special issue for TrAC -Trends in Analytical Chemistry (IF 14.9), Chemosphere (IF 8.9), Associate Editor for Heliyon Chemical Engineering, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (IF 6.0); Editorial Advisory/ECR Board for Advance in Sample Preparation (Elsevier), Environment Science & Ecotechnology (Elsevier IF 9.8), co-chairing/session-chairing the international conference. He leads a working group on environmental sensors and wastewater surveillance sponsored by UKRI BBSRC EBNet and is leading to organize the international conference TTW6 in Oxford in 2023.

Current Projects

UK Leverhulme Trust Research Leadership Award, Sensing wastewater for real-time public health (PI, 2023-2028, £1.9M)

UKRI-BBSRC, Anglo-Canadian Collaboration on Antimicrobial resistance (ACCAMR), BB/X012840/1 (PI, 2023-2025, £150k) with Universities of Toronto, McGill, Calgary, Laval

BioBit International Programme at Zhejiang Lab, CRISPR/Cas-enabled smart sensors integration within artificial cells for biocomputing (PI, 2023-2026, £420,000);

UKRI MRC IAA, Origami paper device for point of care diagnosis of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (PI in Cranfield, 2023-2024)

UK Royal Academy of Engineering Frontier Follow-on scheme, Low-cost paper-based biosensors for rapid monitoring of water quality in LMICs, (PI, 2020 - 2024, FF\1920\1\36, £310,286); in collaboration with Federal University Lafia, Nigeria & Cameron

UK Royal Academy of Engineering Frontier Follow-on scheme -Top up funds for translation( PI, 2023-2024)

UK Royal Society Research Grants, Understanding AMR transmission in the environment using the digital molecular method (PI, 2023-2024, RGS\R1\231032)

UK Royal Society, Development of microfluidic paper-based biochips for point-of-care detection of multiple cytokines,(PI, 2022-2024, IEC\NSFC\211234)

UKRI-BBSRC Proof-of-Concept, CRISPR/Cas-enabled paper-based sensors for rapid monitoring of antimicrobial resistance (PI, 2022-2023)

UK Research England HEIF Spinning Out Novel Pathogen Analysis Technology (PI, 2023-2023)

Completed Projects

UK NERC NPIF Innovation Fellowship, Lab-on-a-Paper for Point-of-Use Microbial Source Tracking (PI, 2018 - 2021, NE/R013349/1, £537,033);

UK NERC, National COVID-19 Wastewater Epidemiology Surveillance Programme (Co-I, 2020 - 2021, NE/V010441/1, £791,191).

UK BBSRC, (Co-I, 2018 - 2020, BB/S004335/1, £200,000); with Cefas, Cromarty Mussels Ltd.

EPSRC-DTP, Diagnostic evaluation of removal of protozoan oocysts (2020-2023)

UK Home Office/Health Security Agency, Post-pandemic sensors for wastewater, PI, 2021-2023

UK Home Office/ACE, Automation for wastewater surveillance, 2021-2022 (Co-I, £247,620)

UK DEFRA - Deloitte MCS Limited, Exploring the development opportunities around the Covid19 WasteWater Sampling, (Co-I, 2022-2022)

Africa Honey Consortium, Establishing a rapid testing system for contaminant detection in African honey (Co-I,2021-2022)

UK Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), Research England, Commercialization of origami-paper device for wastewater surveillance, (PI, 2022-2022)

UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) - Deloitte MCS Limited, Understanding exposure routes and pathways of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment (PI, 2022-2022)

Research England via Cranfield University, Smart Living Grand Challenges, (Co-I, 2020-2022)

UK Home Office/ACE, Paper-origami device for rapid detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, (PI, 2021-2022)

Anglian Water, Rapid Covid sensors, PI, 2020-2021

Industry partner, Automatic detection for sewage virus, PI, 2020-2022

UK Royal Academy of Engineering, Low-cost and rapid water sensors for LMICs (PI, 2018 - 2020, FoDSF\1819\1\8); with Federal University Lafia

UK Royal Academy of Engineering, Rapid Sepsis Diagnostics (Co-I, 2018 - 2019, FoEST1819\T6\4); with Tran Hung Dao University Hospital, Vietnam

UK Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering, Rapid monitoring of water contamination using cost-effective sensors, (PI, 2018 - 2019, PECRE1819/05)

Clients

UKRI (NERC, EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC), The Leverhulme Trust, The Royal Society, The Royal Academy of Engineering, Home Office, Environment Agency, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), Scottish Partnership of Research Funds, Scottish Water, Anglian Water, and other industry

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

Books