Student Spotlight: Junpeng Li

What is the key to seamlessly integrating electronics into the human body? That is the central question guiding the work of biomedical engineering master’s student Junpeng Li. Working in the lab of Xiao Yang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, he recently published a first-author review of advances in bioelectronics for neural interfacing in
MRS Communications.

Here, Li discusses his research on making medical devices better integrate with the body, how his work can help combat neurological disease, and how he plans to expand upon his research after graduation.

What was the purpose and findings of your recent paper in MRS Communications and how has it impacted your
research goals? 

My paper is a first-author review of advances in bioelectronics for neural interfacing, technology that connects brain activity with external medical devices. The advances include high-density electrode platforms, flexible and stretchable electronics, 3D organoid-integrated devices, and emerging living bioelectronic constructs. These innovations are reshaping what neural interfaces can do, and outline future directions for seamless, long-term communication with neural tissue.

I found a key unmet limitation: most current human brain organoids rely on external passive diffusion for oxygen and nutrient transport, which fundamentally limits their growth and viability. Meanwhile, most existing bioelectronic interfaces cannot simultaneously perform vascular-like delivery of nutrients and oxygen while maintaining stable contact with soft 3D tissues. This insight shifted my research focus toward engineering interfaces that not only “read out” neural activity but actively support the physiological microenvironment of the tissue.

How did you take that insight and apply it to your thesis work?

My thesis work focuses on developing a vascular-like scaffold or biocompatible structure that mimics blood vessels to help deliver oxygen and nutrients to the tissues of human brain organoids. With this improved delivery, organoids are stable enough to interface with bioelectronic probes, track learning-like dynamics, and alter them continuously.

Inspired by the Kirigami electronics (KiriE) platform developed by my advisor Xiao Yang, I adopted the spiral KiriE architecture and built 3D tube models to simulate nutrient diffusion using COMSOL, a physics-based simulation software. By redefining the KiriE geometry through custom Python code, I optimized scaffold parameters to overcome diffusion limitations.

In parallel, I cultured human brain organoids and explored integrating the scaffold into living systems. My research sits at the intersection of bioelectronics, biomechanics, and developmental neurobiology. Solving nutrient transport at a 3D scale is a prerequisite for enabling meaningful, long-term neural interfacing in human-specific models. This work could help medical devices communicate with the body more naturally by supporting the tissues they interface with rather than only sensing signals.

Do you plan to expand on your thesis research after graduating from the BME master’s program?

After graduation, I plan to pursue a PhD and continue advancing organoid–bioelectronics integration. I want to build multimodal, flexible platforms that can sustain tissue viability, record neural activity volumetrically, and eventually enable closed-loop modulation in human-relevant 3D models. Long-term, I hope to establish an academic lab that integrates flexible electronics, organoid platforms, and computational modeling to study neural development, plasticity, and disease.

How will your research help fight disease?

Developing healthier, long-lived human brain organoids could aid researchers in modeling neurological disorders such as epilepsy or Alzheimer’s disease, allowing them to test how potential therapies affect neural activity before clinical trials.