John Wikswo

Five exceptional Vanderbilt faculty members have been named 2025 Master Innovators for their extraordinary contributions to translating research into commercial applications that have significant societal impact. The 2025 honorees represent diverse fields from infectious disease therapeutics to neuroscience drug discovery and biomedical engineering.  Read More

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, now with support from Vanderbilt's Innovation Catalyst Fund. Read More

Vanderbilt’s Innovation Catalyst Fund has awarded seven new faculty-led projects, advancing translational research and innovation in health care, engineering and AI-driven solutions. Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

All-remote collaboration results in free animal susceptibility tool to help prioritize research and closer examination of at-risk species. Read More

A new Vanderbilt study funded by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency seeks to construct a new platform and reliable approach for future studies into organophosphate compounds, such as pesticides, insecticides and similar nerve agents. Read More

Scientists at Vanderbilt University have created a three-dimensional organ-on-a-chip that can mimic the heart’s amazing biomechanical properties in order to study cardiac disease, develop heart drugs. Read More

A new microfluidic device containing human cells that faithfully mimics the behavior of the blood-brain barrier is providing new insights into brain inflammation, the silent killer. Read More

Expect the unexpected when you walk into Kit Parker’s biophysics lab at Harvard. From cuttlefish skin camouflage to cotton candy machines used for wound dressings, his science is anything but ordinary. In fact, the young scientists inside are just as likely to be playing with crayons to visualize solutions… Read More

Expect the unexpected when you walk into Kit Parker’s biophysics lab at Harvard. From cuttlefish skin camouflage to cotton candy machines used for wound dressings, his science is anything but ordinary. Read More

In the latest VUCast: See which simple food can ease your allergies; learn about Vanderbilt's role in testing man-made chemicals; and what new invention can help reduce drought? Watch now! Read More

EPA is establishing a new center at Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh to develop an alternative approach for toxicity testing to help evaluate the safety of the 80,000-plus chemicals in general commerce. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers will play a key role in the second phase of the federal "tissue chip for drug screening" program. Read More

A team of Vanderbilt researchers is working on a radical new way to test drugs and toxins. It all starts with an "organ on a chip." Read More

Vanderbilt physicist John Wikswo reported significant progress toward creating “homo minutus” – a human-on-a-chip that can be used to test drugs and toxins – on Mar. 26 at the Society of Toxicology meeting in Phoenix. Read More

Vanderbilt University has been awarded a Cooperative Agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army Research Office that is worth up to $16.5 million over five years. Read More

John Wikswo, Gordon A. Cain University Professor of biomedical engineering and A. B. Learned Professor of Living Physics, presented "Homunculi and I: Lessons from building organs on chips" at TedX Nashville April 6, 2013. Read More

The Systems Biology and Bioengineering Undergraduate Research Experience Searle Undergraduate Research Initiative is one of only a handful of multiyear, year-round undergraduate research programs in the nation. Read More

A team of scientists has taken a major step toward developing robot biologists. They have shown that their system, the Automated Biology Explorer, can solve a complicated biology problem from scratch. Read More