Dec 21 2009
The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering faculty members who direct the Institute for NanoBioTechnology and Engineering in Oncology Center both have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow. Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.
(Left) Denis Wirtz, EOC director. (Right) Peter Searson, INBT director. Photo by Will Kirk/JHU
Peter C. Searson, the Joseph R. and Lynn C. Reynolds Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, was named for distinguished contributions to the field of surface chemistry and nanoscience. His research interests include surface and molecular engineering, and semiconductor quantum dots.
Searson directs the interdivisional Institute for NanoBioTechnology launched in May 2006, which brings together researchers from medicine, engineering, the sciences, and public health to create new knowledge and develop new technologies to revolutionize health care and medicine. INBT currently has more than 190 affiliated faculty members. Searson has secondary appointments in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Oncology.
Denis Wirtz, the Theophilus H. Smoot Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was elected for his contributions to cell micromechanics and cell adhesion. He also was distinguished for his development and application for particle tracking methods to probe the micromechanical properties of living cells in normal conditions and disease state. Wirtz studies the biophysical properties of healthy and diseased cells, including interactions between adjacent cells and the role of cellular architecture on nuclear shape and gene expression.
Wirtz directs the newly formed Johns Hopkins Engineering in Oncology Center. The EOC is a Physical Sciences in Oncology program center of the National Cancer Institute launched in October 2009 with a $14.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. EOC brings together experts in cancer biology, molecular and cellular biophysics, applied mathematics, materials science, and physics to study and model cellular mobility and the assorted biophysical forces involved in the spread of cancer. Wirtz also serves as co-director of the Institute for NanoBioTechnology and has a joint appointment in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Oncology.
A total of seven Johns Hopkins faculty members were elected to AAAS this year. Read about all of them in a Johns Hopkins University press release listed in the links below.
This year 531 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Feb. 20 at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. AAAS Fellows were announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on Dec. 18, 2009.