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 CU Boulder,” said Shields, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder.
According to the foundation, award recipients “are within the first five years of their academic careers, have each created an outstanding independent body of scholarship and are deeply committed to education.”
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—and co-opt—immune 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.
“The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation value all of these dimensions of teaching,” 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 CU Science Discovery created the first annual "Reverse Science Fair" last year. This event challenges graduate students to effectively communicate their research to local high school students in an engaging and understandable manner.
“The earlier we offer these opportunities for high school students to discover the diversity of scientific fields and careers out there, the better,” 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 and a National Institute of Health Maximizing Investigators' Research award.