John P. Wikswo, Jr.

University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering
University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
University Distinguished Professor of Physics
Founding Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education

Overview:

The Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education (VIIBRE) is developing automated microfluidic pumps, valves, controls, and sensors for a wide variety of biomedical applications, primarily at the fluidic-volume scale of 10’s to 100’s of microliters and flow rates ranging from 0.1 to 100’s of microliters per minute. While these current devices are hardly at “nano” scale, we have come to realize that the practical in vitro applications of many nanotechnologies as sensors and controls are in fact limited by the scale of the biological experiments that can best benefit from nanotechnologies. Today, many nanoscience experiments are conducted either in multi-well plates or free-standing microfluidics. The automation of well plate assays will clearly benefit from miniature, multi-channel pumps and valves, and often the pumps and reservoirs that perfuse microfluidic chips are orders of magnitude larger than the chips themselves. Hence VIIBRE is focusing on technologies that will enable cutting-edge nanoscience, with a growing emphasis on the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to create self-driving laboratories that operate as robot scientists. Nanoscale sensors and actuators could play an important role in these “laboratories of the future.”

Awards:

-R&D 100 Award for MultiWell MicroFormulator, 2017
-Full Member, Society of Toxicology, 2016
-Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2010
-Fellow, Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, 2008
-Fellow, Heart Rhythm Society, 2006
-The Nightingale Prize, 2006
-Fellow, Biomedical Engineering Society, 2005
-Fellow of the American Heart Association, 2001
-Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, 1999
-Thomas Jefferson Award, Vanderbilt University, 1997
-John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, 1992-1993
-Fellow, American Physical Society, 1990
-IR-100 Award for Neuromagnetic Current Probe, 1984
-Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, 1980-1982