Microfluidic pioneer Stephen Quake receives award in biotechnology and medicine

Stephen Quake, a pioneering Stanford bioengineer whose work with microscopic amounts of fluid is transforming medicine, has received Brandeis University’s Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine.

Quake, the Lee Otterson Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics, is a world-renowned expert in microfluidics. The approach enables scientists to measure and then direct the flow of liquids at the sub-millimeter scale.

He has applied microfluidics to biology, devising a system of “microplumbing” where minute amounts of bodily fluids are directed through a circuit of channels and valves and then analyzed. As a result, you need only the tiniest amount of sample from patients to perform diagnostic testing.

In 2008, Quake invented a non-invasive method of diagnosing Down Syndrome in a fetus from a few drops of the mother’s blood rather than cells extracted from inside the womb. It’s estimated that more than half-a-million women have avoided amniocentesis or other invasive diagnostic tests because of Quake’s research.

Quake also is recognized for sequencing his own DNA using a novel approach he developed in his lab for under $50,000. To his surprise, he discovered he was at elevated risk for obesity, type-2 diabetes and coronary artery disease.

“In demonstrating the first single molecule DNA sequencing technology, applying it to sequence his own genome, and conducting the first clinical annotation of a whole genome sequence, he heralded the now burgeoning field of personal genomics,” says Brandeis professor of physics Jané Kondev.

His research has also focused on mapping the immune system, an interest sparked when his daughter was diagnosed with food allergies.

Quake is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a member of the National Academy of the Sciences, and the recipient of a Marshall Scholarship and the Lemelson-MIT Prize. He has 80 patents and is the founder of four companies.

“Steve is an awesome colleague and this is well-deserved recognition," said Norbert Pelc, the Shriram Chair of Bioengineering at Stanford. "He is an amazingly creative scientist whose innovations have already had a huge effect within the field of bioengineering and more broadly as well. I venture to say that the impact of his work will continue to grow for many years to come.”

This is a slightly edited version of a story by Lawrence Goodman of the Office of Communication at Brandeis University.