Welcome to the Zhou's lab of Food Physics & Materials !

We explore sustainable food proteins, investigate fundamentals of their self-assemblings and interactions with bioactives, and design food stuctures with higher nutritional and physical functionality. Our goal is to develop sustainable future foods and biomaterials for better human well-being!

Our Research

Our team particulalrly focus on the natural sustainable proteins from plant, sea-products and industrial by-products, and investigate the fundamental mechanisms of protein self-assembling into protein nanofibrils, including their instrinsic properties, novel self-assembling behaviors, and interactions with other bioactives. Besides, we are also interested in natural biopolymers including polysaccharide, celloluse and silk-faroin.

We utilize the unique mechanisms and features of these nanostructures to develop matrices and biomaterials for various applications accrossing functional foods, nutrition delivery, biomedical materials, and other functional materials.

Featured Publications

Full list see Publications, Google Scholar (H-index 26) and ORCID

 

  1. L. Frey‡, J. Zhou‡,*. G. Cereghetti, M. Emanuel, D. Rhyner, A. Pokharna, L. Wenchel, H. Kadavath, M. Weber, Y. Cao, B. Meier, M. Peter, J. Greenwald, R. Riek*, R. Mezzenga*. A structural rationale for reversible vs irreversible amyloid fibril formation from a single protein. Nature Communications 15(1), 1-11, 2024. (‡ denotes co-first author and * denotes co-corresponding author)

  2. J. Zhou, A. Salvatore, M. Tatli, J. Tian, I. Illie, E. Starostin, A. Calflisch, T. Knowles, G. Dietler, F. Ruggeri, H. Stahlberg, S. Sekatskii, R. Mezzenga*. The role of inter-protofilament interaction in the formation mechanism of hierarchically twisted protein nanofibrils. Advanced Science 11(32), 2402740, 2024.

  3. J. Zhou‡,*, C. Liao‡,*, M. Villalba, C. Xiong, Cong. Zhao, L. Venturelli, D. Liu, A. Kohler, S. Sekatskii, G. Dietler, Y. Wang*, S. Kasas*. An optical fiber-based nanomotion sensor for rapid antibiotic and antifungal susceptibility test. Nano Letters 24 (10), 2980-2988, 2024.  (Cover Paper).

  4. D. Xu‡, J. Zhou‡,*, W. Soon, I. Kutzli, A. Moliere, M. Radiom, S. Handschin, B. Li, L. Li, C. Ewald and R. Mezzenga*. Food protein amyloids are safe intergrades for human nutrition Food Amyloid Fibrils as Safe Nutrition Ingredients: In-vitro and In-vivo Assessment. Nature Communications 14(1) 6806, 2023 (co-first author, co-corresponding author).

  5. J. Zhou, T. Li, M. Peydayesh, M. Usuelli, V. Bueno, J. Teng, L. Wang and R. Mezzenga*. Oat plant amyloids for sustainable functional materials. Advanced Science 9(4), 2104445, 2022. (Cover Paper)

News

2025/07   The lab opens at National University of Singapore!
 

Interested in joining our lab ?

We are recruiting for postdocs and telanted PhD students.

We are always welcoming visiting scholars and self-funded postdoc/students.

Please send your CV and the names of three references to Dr. Jiangtao Zhou (jiangtao.zhou@hest.ethz.ch)