John Wikswo: Transforming small-scale science into planet-sized impact

When an "unsolvable" problem needs solving, put John Wikswo on the team.

As director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and Physics, Wikswo is tackling questions crucial to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries-and possibly the planet and humanity:

How can we improve the safety and efficiency of our drug development process and accelerate the creation of therapies designed for individual patients?

How can we clean up environmentally problematic molecules, from forever chemicals to excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

How can we produce large quantities of nutrient-dense foods without straining natural resources?

And lastly, how can we perform these tasks at the scale our planet desperately needs?

The answer begins with living cells-from microbes like yeast and E. colito more complex (and fragile) mammalian cells.

Think of these cells as tiny factories producing the molecules we need to survive-therapeutic proteins, vaccines and biochemicals used in food and beverages-all in vast quantities.

Currently, optimizing cells and the procedures to grow them is time-consuming and expensive. Wikswo, who's been an active researcher for 58 years, is building a prototype instrument that uses artificial intelligence to run thousands of wet-lab cell experiments in parallel, a shortcut that could drastically slash the time and cost of discovery. The resulting technology could be mass-produced and put to work across industries from biotech to food.

"The future of our planet may be determined by how quickly we can learn to use microbes and other living cells to solve hard problems," Wikswo said. "Our work is designed to accelerate how quickly scientists and engineers can find or engineer the microbe that is best for each job."

With backing from Vanderbilt University's Innovation Catalyst Fund, which gives faculty the resources to take ideas with commercial potential out of the lab and into the real world, Wikswo and his team are developing a system with 1,000 miniature bioreactors where cells can be grown and tested. Simultaneously, they are working to minimize the equipment needed (tubing, pumps, valves and sensors) to keep the system compact and efficient-a challenge that presents its own obstacles.

"We are continuously inventing and patenting new technologies to solve technical problems that arise as we connect the many parts," Wikswo said. "The timely resolution of these bottlenecks will benefit greatly from this targeted investment of Innovation Catalyst funds."

For Wikswo, the prototype is just the beginning. Over the next decade, he hopes the technology will scale to tackle some of the planet's most pressing problems.

"I hope that this work will provide the foundation for a successful commercial enterprise that designs, produces, sells and services cell-culture instruments that can help save the planet and its inhabitants."