We are an interdisciplinary academic lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, consisting enthusiastic students, postdoctoral fellows, and staff researchers with broad expertise in bioenigneering, chemistry, materials science, and electrical and computer engineering. We work on areas across the traditional disciplines of science, engineering, and medicine, and aim to develop state-of-art technology to address major health problems, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Research in the Nie group is primarily in Nanotechnology, Image-Guided Robotic Surgery, Wearable Spectroscopic Devices and Digital Health. We develop several classes of nano-particles including semiconductor quantum dots, perovskite quantum dots and other classes of fluorescent nano-dots for those purposes. We use these nanoparticles for important medical applications such as image-guided surgery, wearable spectroscopic devices for early detection of diseases with the aid of digital health. In-vitro diagnostic of biomolecular signatures (biomarkers) for early detection of cardiac diseases is another major area of research in our group. In collaboration with physicians and surgeons, our work currently focuses on many aspects of medicine.