Shujie Yang harnesses sound to build the next generation of microrobotic medicine
Yang’s lab at Penn Engineering uses precisely-controlled ultrasound waves to develop microscale tools that can manipulate cells, viruses, and soft materials without physical contact.
2 min. read
As a child, Shujie Yang, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, was captivated by robots and the idea that intelligent machines could be built, programmed, and brought to life. Science fiction novels and robotics films fed his imagination, but it was a televised university robotics competition that left a lasting impression: Watching students design open robotic systems to complete complex tasks planted a dream that would guide his career in mechanical engineering.
Shujie Yang is at the frontier of single-cell acoustic manipulation, an emerging field that blends physics, mechanobiology, and medicine.
(Image: Courtesy of Penn Engineering)
At Penn Engineering, Yang’s lab explores an unconventional but powerful medium for engineering and medicine alike: sound. Using precisely controlled ultrasound waves, Yang develops acoustic tweezers—microscale tools that can manipulate cells, viruses, and soft materials without physical contact. His work sits at the intersection of mechanical engineering, microsystems, and biomedicine, with implications for disease diagnostics, immunology, and future cancer therapies.
His graduate work was geared toward precision micro- and nanoscale systems, where the rules of physics change and intuition must be rebuilt from the ground up. Studying bio-micro-electro-mechanical systems during his doctoral studies, Yang began to integrate engineering with biology. A pivotal moment came when he encountered research on acoustic manipulation.
“I started wondering whether ultrasound waves could be programmed to function almost like a human hand, to grab, move or interact with microparticles,” he says. “That idea kept me up all night.”
The question became the foundation of his doctoral work and, ultimately, his research identity.
At the heart of Yang’s work is a set of fundamental questions: Can sound waves be tuned to resonate with specific cells? Is there a “magic frequency” that selectively affects cancer cells but spares healthy ones? And how does acoustic stimulation alter immune cell behavior?
Yang aims to answer these questions from a strong background of research in the field of acoustic manipulation. Through studies published in Nature Materials, Nature Protocols and Nature Reviews Methods Primers, he has introduced programmable acoustic tweezers, established widely used experimental frameworks, and articulated the core principles that enable sound-based control of micro- and nanoscale biological systems—fundamentals that support his current and future work at Penn.
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
