Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. John T. McDevitt received his B.S. degree in Chemistry in 1982 from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. There he was distinguished with the Chemistry Department Research Award. At Stanford University he completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1987 and was honored with a prestigious Grace Fellowship. Dr. McDevitt then completed postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In September of 1989, he accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at UT. In 1990 he received the Presidential Young Investigator Award and in 1991 was granted the Exxon Education Foundation Award. Dr. McDevitt was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in September of 1995 and to Full Professor in the Fall semester of 2000. At UT, Professor McDevitt has published over 150 papers in scientific journals and has secured over 95 patents/patent applications, thereby establishing one of the largest patent portfolios in the history of UT.

In 1996 Prof. John T. McDevitt developed the concept for and launched a research program directed towards a microchip-based technology suitable for the rapid analysis of complex fluids. Over the past decade, in excess of $24M in research funding has been secured to support work in this area. The Beckman Center for Chemical Sensors and the Army Research Office MURI Center for Biological Sensors at UT have been established to promote these activities that have included collaborative contributions from 12 UT research groups. In 2002, the McDevitt group developed new methods for rapid bacteria-spore detection for homeland defense applications. In the same year, miniaturized sensors suitable for the measurement of cardiac risk factors was pioneered. In 2003 his research team developed HIV monitoring biochips for use in resource poor settings and in the following year was awarded a Gates grant for the rapid development of HIV monitoring biochips for use in Africa. In 2006, Professor McDevitt was selected to serve as the Principal Investigator for a four year, $6.1M cooperative research program supported by the NIH. This program involves the participation of three dental-medical schools and targets the development of next generation diagnostic devices for noninvasive testing of saliva samples.

The McDevitt group's lab-on-a-chip work was recently selected as part of Science Coalition's Best Scientific Advances for the Year. To date, these microchip sensors have been shown to be suitable for detection / quantification of acids, bases, salts, sugars, proteins, viruses, and DNA oligomers. Likewise, the chemical and biochemical content of complex fluids such as blood and urine can be digitized in near-real-time. Work is now in progress to correlate these "digital fingerprints" with important global health care, environmental, biomedical, homeland security and food safety/quality application areas. Recently, Prof. McDevitt has helped to launch a new company called LabNow based on this same microchip sensor technology for HIV monitoring applications for use in resource poor settings. This work has been the focus of perspective articles in Science and has also been featured in a special issue of Business Week on the subject matter of nano science and engineering.