12 Dec 2025
A research team led by Dr Jeong Park from the School of Science at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) has won Third Prize (50,000 RMB) in the Industrial category of New Materials at the 9th Shenzhen Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition (International Division). The team includes PhD students Xinghan Zhang and Yuxin Liang.
The Shenzhen Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition is regarded as one of China’s key platforms for showcasing emerging technologies and supporting early-stage startups. Each year, it attracts teams from sectors such as new materials, biomedicine, next-generation information technology and advanced manufacturing, and connects them with investors, industry experts and incubators in Shenzhen’s innovation ecosystem.
A synthetic chromatin platform for safer, more efficient delivery
The team’s award-winning project focuses on a next-generation synthetic chromatin delivery platform, a biomimetic material inspired by eukaryotic chromatin architecture. In applications such as medical aesthetics, skincare and biomolecule delivery, conventional peptides and growth factors often struggle to cross biological barriers effectively.
“Our synthetic chromatin material, engineered with the cell-penetrating peptide gH625, offers eight-fold enhanced penetration efficiency while maintaining excellent biocompatibility,” Yuxin Liang explained.
“This technology addresses a long-standing challenge: how to deliver active molecules across the skin or cellular membrane safely and efficiently without chemical penetration enhancers or invasive procedures.”
The platform integrates biomimetic structural design with functional transdermal delivery. By leveraging the ordered architecture of synthetic chromatin, it aims to provide high membrane permeability, compatibility with macromolecules and scalability. According to the team, the system has shown performance that exceeds multiple commercial PDRN delivery systems in penetration depth, efficiency and molecular stability.
A major technical challenge during development was ensuring the structural stability of the synthetic chromatin complex during scale-up while retaining the functional accessibility of the gH625 peptide. “We optimised the physicochemical environment for nucleosome assembly and developed gentle stabilisation strategies,” Yuxin.Liang noted. “This helped us achieve high reproducibility in larger-scale preparations.”
Within the team, Dr Park provides scientific direction and connects academic research with potential industrial applications. PhD students Yuxin Liang and Xinghan Zhang jointly contributed to material assembly, mechanistic studies and biological testing, and worked together on competition materials and technical presentations.
Reflecting on the preparation process, the students said: “The decision to join the competition was largely inspired by Prof. Park, who emphasised that innovative academic research should be evaluated not only by scientific impact but also by its potential for real-world application and industrial transformation. Under his guidance, we saw the competition as an opportunity to validate our technology globally and to explore Shenzhen as a strategic site for future industrialisation.”
Stepping outside the laboratory
Participating in the Shenzhen Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition was also a chance for the students to look at their work from a new angle.
“For us as young researchers, this competition was far more than a stage to present a project—it was a rare opportunity to step outside the laboratory and see how our work is understood, questioned and evaluated by people from industry, investment and technology transfer”.
“As PhD students, we are used to thinking in terms of mechanisms, experiments and data, but preparing for this competition forced us to reorganise our understanding of the project from a completely different angle: ‘Why does this matter?’ and ‘How can this technology actually change something in the real world?” Yuxin and Xinghan said.
They added that the experience has shaped how they think about their future research and development plans.
“Dr Park’s supervision was also an important part of the journey. Yuxin shared. “He helped us a lot in the design of the production framework, including process logic, quality control considerations and scalability, as well as his guidance in structuring the competition materials and articulating the value of the project in the context of new materials innovation.”
The team plans to further develop the synthetic chromatin platform and continue exploring pathways for future collaboration and application.
Content: Luyao
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