Off

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields presents at the 2023 Packard Fellows retreat.

Wyatt Shields has been honored with a 2024 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award for his contributions to teaching and research on medical microrobots, self-propelled miniature robots that one day might deliver prescription drugs to hard-to-reach places inside the human body.

PhD Student Nicole Day presents her research to Northglenn High School Students at the "Reverse Science Fair," held on Nov. 27, 2023. Credit: Byron Reed, 9News.

Microrobot seen under a scanning electron microscope.
(Credit: Shields Lab)

Eighteen Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars were selected for 2024, and each awardee will receive an unrestricted grant of $100,000.

"I am honored to join an impressive community of scholars who are committed to research excellence and teaching at the highest levels, reflecting the core values we share at 欧美口爆视频 Boulder,鈥� said Shields, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of 欧美口爆视频 Boulder.

According to the foundation, award recipients 鈥渁re within the first five years of their academic careers, have each created an outstanding independent body of scholarship and are deeply committed to education.鈥�

Funds from this award will support new trainees in the Shields Lab to advance work on synthetic and living microrobots that are capable of performing next-generation medical tasks. Synthetic microrobots are manufactured from biocompatible materials to move or change shape in response to stimulation from ultrasound or magnetic fields. In contrast, living microrobots comprise nanoparticles that attach to鈥攁nd co-opt鈥攊mmune cells for enhanced delivery to diseased tissues for medical treatments.

The microrobots may one day enhance the delivery of drugs to diseased tissues within the body or inform treatment decisions; instead of cutting into the patient, the robots could enter the body through a pill or an injection and undergo remote stimulation.

Shields added that teaching takes many forms, including classroom pedagogy, mentoring undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the lab and engaging in community outreach.

鈥淭he Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation value all of these dimensions of teaching,鈥� he said.

Shields plans to use this award to connect academic research to classroom teaching and to engage the broader public. To this end, Shields and Alex Rose from 欧美口爆视频 Science Discovery created the first annual "" last year. This event challenges graduate students to effectively communicate their research to local high school students in an engaging and understandable manner.

鈥淭he earlier we offer these opportunities for high school students to discover the diversity of scientific fields and careers out there, the better,鈥� Rose said.

Shields has won numerous awards, including a Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering, a Pew Biomedical Scholar award, an NSF CAREER award, an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program award鈥� and a National Institute of Health Maximizing Investigators' Research award.

Off

Off

Nicole Day has been selected as the recipient of the 2023 Acta Student Award for her primary contribution to the manuscript titled, 鈥�,鈥� published in the September 2022 edition of Acta Biomaterialia.

Day is a rising fifth-year chemical and biological engineering PhD student in 欧美口爆视频 Boulder鈥檚 Shields Lab, where her research focuses on developing particle-based systems to improve the delivery of cancer immunotherapies. The goal of her work is to enhance the effectiveness of current treatments while minimizing adverse side effects by precisely controlling the timing and targeted delivery sites of these therapies.

鈥淭his award is an exciting honor because it recognizes more than the impact of my research, but also looks comprehensively at my graduate career,鈥� Day said.  鈥淎dditionally, the work we are doing is extremely important; it鈥檚 exciting to be recognized from among a pool of applicants across many disciplines.鈥�

Day was the sole recipient for Acta Biomaterialia鈥檚 prestigious award, which includes a $2,000 prize.  The award will be presented to her during the Acta Symposium at the TMS 2024 Annual meeting & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida, in March. She has also been invited to present a poster during the reception. 

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields said the award acknowledges both the excellence of Nicole鈥檚 work as well as her article.

鈥淭his award builds on Nicole's already impressive list of accomplishments and is a testament to her ingenuity, rigorousness and resolve,鈥� Shields said.  

Acta Biomaterialia is an international journal that publishes peer-reviewed original research reports, review papers and communications within the broad field of biomaterials science. The journal emphasizes the relationship between biomaterial structure and function at various length scales.

Off

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields has been selected to participate in the National Academy of Engineering's Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering 2023 Symposium. Engineers who are performing exceptional research and technical work in a variety of disciplines will come together for the two-and-a-half-day event. The participants 鈥� from industry, academia, and government 鈥� were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations.

The symposium will be hosted by the University of 欧美口爆视频 Boulder, Sept. 10-13, 2023.

Since the program鈥檚 inception in 1995, more than 5,000 early-career engineers have participated in previous symposia, many of whom have gone on to become national leaders in the engineering community.

Off

Off

Assistant Professor Wyatt Shields of chemical and biological engineering  and Ivana Yang from 欧美口爆视频 Anschutz received a five-year National Institute of General Medical Sciences/NIH/DHHS award with an anticipated funding amount of $1.7 million for 鈥淎doptive Macrophage Transfers for Nanoparticle Delivery."

Off

In a banner year that has included receiving five distinguished research awards, Wyatt Shields, assistant professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, has been awarded one of the nation鈥檚 largest and most prestigious awards for young investigators: a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. 

The award honors the Shields Lab鈥�s research to develop tiny particles that address large medical challenges, such as drug delivery and disease monitoring. Shields鈥� team builds microrobots鈥攖oo small to be detectable by the human eye鈥� to create small-scale systems that perform these sophisticated tasks with relative ease. 

鈥淏eing named a Packard Fellow is a huge honor,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淚 am humbled to be in the company of great scientists and leaders that I have looked up to my entire career.鈥�
 
Only 20 young investigators win a Packard Fellowship each year. Previous winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize, the Fields Medal, MacArthur Fellowship and elections to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. 
 
This year Shields received four other prestigious awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award; Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program award; Pew Biomedical Scholars award; and an NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35).

鈥淚 have never seen a faculty member get off to a more impressive start than Wyatt," said Professor Will Medlin, department chair of Chemical and Biological Engineering. "Being named a Packard Fellow is another milestone in the long list of highly competitive awards he received this year. It demonstrates the impact and excitement of his research accomplishments in microscale robotics."

Shields is 欧美口爆视频 Boulder鈥檚 and the College of Engineering and Applied Science鈥檚 fourth Packard Fellowship winner, alongside the college鈥檚 most recent winner, Christoph Keplinger, an associate professor of mechanical engineering who won the award in 2017. Since 1988, the Packard Foundation has awarded $481 million to support 675 scientists and engineers from 54 national universities.
 
Each 2022 fellow will receive a grant of $875,000 to pursue their research. Shields鈥� award will support his lab for the next five years to focus its efforts on building microrobots and testing their use on challenging biomedical problems, such as navigating tortuous environments, swimming through non-Newtonian fluids and treating diseased tissues. 

      Wyatt Shields

鈥淚 am excited to freely pursue bold ideas with the Packard Foundation鈥檚 support,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淭his award would not have been possible without the support of my outstanding students and colleagues at 欧美口爆视频 Boulder.鈥�

Off

Shields

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is a recipient of a 2022 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program Award for his proposal 鈥淢apping Immune Cell Responses to High Pressures in Decompression Illness.鈥� He is among 32 researchers nationwide selected to receive funding for conducting 鈥渋nnovative scientific research that will benefit the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps鈥� .

The U.S. Navy has an ongoing interest in studying decompression sickness, which is often referred to as 鈥渢he bends.鈥� Shields and his group seek to understand how immune cells in human lungs respond to extreme diving conditions to learn more about the origins of this affliction. 

鈥淎s divers descend, increased gas pressure within the lungs leads to increased dissolved oxygen and nitrogen in the bloodstream, affecting the biochemistry of alveolar cells,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淥ur research aims to understand how alveolar immune cells respond to extreme environmental factors associated with deep sea diving as a step toward discovering the potential etiology of decompression sickness.鈥�

The lab group is currently developing a 鈥渓ung-on-a-chip" device as a model system that replicates the physiological conditions of human lungs experiencing high pressure loads. This work requires cross-disciplinary collaboration with human health researchers, including Professor at 欧美口爆视频 Anschutz, who will help identify genes that regulate cellular responses to these environmental factors through epigenomic and transcriptomic screens on monocytes. 

The first phase of research is devoted to building the lung-on-a-chip devices, with initial results expected by the second year of the three-year project.

Off

Assistant Professor C. Wyatt Shields IV is the recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award for his proposal 鈥�.鈥� This project seeks to develop a new method of early identification of disease biomarkers, while also facilitating outreach and education to students at Northglenn High School. 

Early disease detection with active, particle-based biosensors

鈥淥ur current reliance upon a narrow set of biomarkers can greatly limit the accuracy of initial diagnoses, especially for complex diseases like cancer,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淎dditionally, with pathologies that progress rapidly 鈥� mere hours for some diseases 鈥� slow readouts can impair outcomes and increase the cost of medical intervention.鈥� 

Shields hopes to address this issue by developing an active, particle-based biosensor wherein particle speed is associated with the amount of biomarkers captured. Particles will be made to have different shapes, each of which will encode for different biomarkers, allowing for the detection of multiple types simultaneously.  

鈥淭he outcome of this work will be a method to capture and quantify heterogeneous biomarkers such as proteins, nucleic acids and exosomes in a single test,鈥� Shields said. 

Science and engineering outreach at Northglenn High School

Shields believes the field of biosensing naturally lends itself to STEM education and outreach efforts. The graduate students in the Shields Lab will put on a 鈥渞everse science fair鈥� to share their work with students at Northglenn High School. 

鈥淥ne of the big challenges in science and engineering is being able to communicate your work to diverse audiences,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淥ur college does a great job training graduate students to communicate their work to audiences with technical backgrounds. What can be paradoxically more challenging is explaining your work to a high schooler who has never taken an engineering course. Part of this CAREER award is designed to provide our students with an opportunity to hone those skills.鈥� 

Left: High school students from Northglenn visit the Shields Lab. Photo courtesy Cooper Thome of the Shields Lab. 
Right: A magnetic particle separator designed by four students from Northglenn. The device is adjustable to fit a variety of tube types to isolate magnetic particles that are created in the Shields Lab for drug delivery applications. Photo courtesy Nicole Day of the Shields Lab.

Shields and his group want to share their findings beyond the usual channels of research papers and conferences 鈥� they want to help educate and inform the public on this important topic. The graduate students will present their research to a panel of Northglenn students who will serve as judges of both the material and the graduate students鈥� ability to present complex information.  

鈥淲e talk about feedback mechanisms in our research,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淭his will give autonomy to students who may not be used to being in that position. They will be able to tell us if they didn鈥檛 understand something, or if they found the demonstration to be enlightening and interesting.鈥� 

The concept of the reverse science fair will build off the Shields Lab鈥檚 previous mentorship program with Northglenn. Three engineering graduate students and four undergraduates have served as mentors to students taking senior design capstone classes. 

鈥淭he partnership between the Northglenn High School students and the Shields group has been invaluable to our students,鈥� said Bill Thielke, a teacher at Northglenn. 鈥淥ur senior design capstone classes have been working with the Shields group to design and build prototypes for problems that have been provided by the researchers.鈥� 

The Shields Lab researchers introduced advanced concepts and problems to the high school students, 鈥渋ncluding a demonstration of the delivery of drugs, developing an enclosure for culturing dinoflagellates and the development of a magnetic particle separator,鈥� Thielke said. These authentic engineering challenges have given the students valuable real-world design and application experience. 

鈥淭he most critical component of this is the mentorship program that the Shields group provides,鈥� Thielke said. 鈥淭he expertise of these mentors has allowed our students to receive critical feedback as they work through the engineering design process.鈥� 

Cooper Thome, a third year PhD candidate in the Shields Lab, is one of the student mentors. 

鈥淭his project has given students experience in solving real-world problems through a number of approaches,鈥� Thorne said. 鈥淭he students have been able to use a variety of skills learned in their high school program, like 3D CAD and printing, along with other new skills to come up with a really nice prototype for a large culture tank in which we will be able to easily culture cells that require certain periods of light and dark.鈥� 

While Thome appreciates the research opportunities provided by collaborating with the students, inspiring and educating high schoolers is one of the main draws of the collaboration. 

"I was lucky enough to have a number of figures like that when I was younger 鈥� some of whom are the reason I am in graduate school today 鈥� so it鈥檚 rewarding to try to do the same for others, even in small ways,鈥� Thome said. 

Nicole Day is a third-year bioengineering PhD candidate and mentor. 

鈥淚t's so much fun to see younger students excited about science and engineering, and I always feel more enthusiastic about my own work after seeing it through the lens of others,鈥� Day said. 鈥淭he opportunity for students to work on these design projects gives them exposure to having their work valued by people in the field they may be interested in, instead of just having another assignment to turn in to their teacher.鈥� 

Day hopes that her participation will help encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to consider careers in STEM fields. 

鈥淪cience and engineering research can be hard and discouraging, and it's not easy to pursue if you don't have external support when you are struggling internally,鈥� Day said. 鈥淚 love seeing the pride students take in their hard work on these projects, and while I've done outreach events for elementary kids in the past, my new goal is to continue engaging with high school students in particular and helping them see their potential in STEM.鈥� 

First year graduate student Taylor Ausec, department junior Sarah Adzema, seniors Julia Bendorf and John Fowle, and biomedical engineering sophomore Chris Orear also participate in the Shields Group mentorship program. 

Shields is excited about integrating his NSF CAREER research with high school outreach. 

鈥淗igh schoolers are on the cusp of making critical decisions about their future,鈥� Shields said. 鈥淚f they see some of these emerging technologies and have opportunities to get involved, they may be more likely to consider a career in STEM.鈥�

Six faculty members within the College of Engineering and Applied Science received CAREER Awards from the National Science Foundation in 2022.

Off