Hongyong Zhang received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China in 2020. He was supervised by Professor Hu Chengzhi and focused his research on coaxial tubular microfluidic devices, dedicated to constructing in vitro glaucoma disease models. From 2020 to 2025, he pursued his Ph.D. at the CenBRAIN Neurotech Center of Excellence at Westlake University and obtained a doctoral degree from Zhejiang University. He was supervised by Professor Mohamad Sawan and focused his scientific research on in vitro neural chips and in vitro neural disease models.

Hongyong Zhang is interested in organ-on-a-chip applications and in vitro three-dimensional neural chips. He focused on the construction methods and functional regulation of in vitro neural connectivity methods. Through cross-scale engineering approaches, we systematically investigate the introduction of 2D and 3D neural connectivity models, their applications, and the theoretical and experimental research on magnetically driven drug delivery methods. This work leverages single-cell manipulation, microfluidic chips, 3D cell culture, and exosome engineering. Key achievements include the construction of small-scale single-cell neural circuits, non-invasive recording of intra-spheroid signals, and magnetically driven exosome-based drug delivery. These contributions form a comprehensive technical framework spanning foundational modeling to translational applications, providing new platforms for neural based studies, drug screening, and neural interface device engineering.

[1] H. Zhang, N. Huang, S. Bian, and M. Sawan, "Platinum wire-embedded culturing device for interior signal recording from lollipop-shaped neural spheroids," Cyborg and Bionic Syst., vol. 6, p. 0220, (2025), doi: 10.34133/cbsystems.0220

[2] H. Zhang, N. Huang, S. Bian, and M. Sawan, “Brain organoids-on-chip for neural diseases modeling: History, challenges and trends,” Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis, p. 101323, (2025), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpha.2025.101323.

[3] H. Zhang et al., "Magnetic nanoparticles for single-neuron manipulation to design a customized neural circuit," Bio-Design and Manufacturing, (2025), doi: 10.1631/bdm.2400372.