Russ Prize Recipient David Walt to speak at OHIO on March 28

The Ohio University community is invited to learn more about the groundbreaking work of David Walt, the 2023 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize Recipient, during a presentation on March 28.

The event will begin at 4:35 p.m. in the Baker University Center Theater and will be followed by a reception at 5:30 p.m. 

Walt will be discussing “Discovery, Scale and Impact” in the presentation. Translating discoveries from an academic lab bedside is rewarding but challenging. In this talk, Walt will describe how the discovery of microwell arrays led to both commercial success and clinical impact.

The presentation will cover how the microwell arrays were discovered and how they led to applications in both genomics and proteomics. Walt will also discuss how the technologies were scaled, such that they could be used by many labs, and how these technologies led to important clinical applications.

Ohio University and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) announced Walt as the recipient of the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize in 2023. Walt was honored for the development of microwell arrays that greatly advanced the fields of genomics and proteomics.

Awarded biennially, the Russ Prize recognizes an outstanding bioengineering achievement in widespread use that improves the human condition.

About David Walt

Walt is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, associate member at the Broad Institute, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, and codirector of the Mass General Brigham Center for COVID Innovation. He is the scientific founder of Illumina Inc. and Quanterix Corp., and has cofounded multiple other life sciences startups including Ultivue, Inc., Arbor Biotechnologies, Sherlock Biosciences, Vizgen, Inc., and Torus Biosciences.

His numerous national and international awards and honors for his fundamental and applied work in the field of optical microwell arrays and single molecules include the 2021 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine (2021), American Chemical Society Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success (2017), Ralph Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry (2016), ACS Gustavus John Esselen Award (2014), Analytical Chemistry Spectrochemical Analysis Award (2013), Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award (2013), and ACS National Award for Creative Invention (2010).

He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and US National Academy of Medicine; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and National Academy of Inventors; and was inducted in the US National Inventors Hall of Fame.

He received his BS in chemistry from the University of Michigan and his PhD in chemical biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.