Research group: Functional Materials for Medicine
Functional Materials have played more and more critical role in development of novel treatment methods for different diseases. Our group focus on designing all kinds of functional materials, at different scales, to solve clinical and biological problems. We have broad collaborations with hospitals, and most of our projects have clinical doctors involved and initial from a real-life clinical question. Our group is multidisciplinary, which interplay between physics, materials science, synthetic organic chemistry, engineering, biology and medicine. We aim that many of our designs could be clinical applicable in future, and to have a great social impact in treating diseases.
Contact: hongbo.zhang@abo.fi
Master Students
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Jessica Salo received her Bachelor´s degree in pharmacy from University of Eastern Finland in 2020. She will receive her Master´s degree in biomedical imaging from Åbo Akademi university in spring 2023. She has joined Professor Hongbo Zhang´s research group in the pharmacy, faculty of science and engineering, Åbo Akademi university for her master´s thesis research with the focus of delivering the novel, edited Crispr/Cas9 plasmid system into cancerous cells of the liver.
Joint Students

Saule Nauryz received her bachelor's and master's degrees in electrochemistry, she was engaged in the development of lithium-ion batteries at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Now Saule is a Ph.D. student at the Eurasian National University named after L.N. Gumilyov" in Astana, Kazakhstan. The topic of her scientific dissertation was "Investigation of the physicochemical properties of thermosensitive fluorinated copolymers based on poly-2-alkyl-oxazolines in mixed aqueous-organic solvents." At the invitation of Professor Hongbo Zhang and under the guidance of Professor Sergey Filippov, Saule is engaged in the study of fluorinated copolymers based on poly-2-alkyl-oxazolines in the Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Abo Academy University.

Svetlana Kovtareva received her bachelor's and master's degrees in chemical technology of organic substances from Toraigyrov University (Pavlodar, Kazakhstan). Currently, she is a Ph.D. student at the Eurasian National University named after L.N. Gumilyov (Astana, Kazakhstan). The field of her scientific research is the study of physicochemical mechanisms of interaction of nanoparticles of mesoporous dioxide silica with antitumor drugs. At the invitation of Professor Hongbo Zhang, she undergoes an internship at the Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering, Åbo Academy University, where, under the guidance of Professor Sergey Filippov, she performs the experimental part of her work.