Draft:David R. Walt

Dr Walt at his Brigham and Women's Hospital laboratory

David R. Walt

David R. Walt is an American scientist, educator and entrepreneur. Walt is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School. and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital , is a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University , Associate Member at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT , and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor . Trained as a chemist, Walt started his academic career in 1981 and spent 35 years in the Chemistry Department at Tufts University where he rose through the ranks to become both Department Chair and the Robinson Professor of Chemistry. In 2014, he was appointed University Professor, the highest honor for a faculty member. In 2017 Walt moved to Harvard. Walt was co-Director of the Mass General Brigham Center for COVID Innovation .

Early Life and Education

Walt was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in Southfield Michigan—a Detroit suburb. He received his B.S. degree from the University of Michigan and his PhD in Chemical Biology from Stony Brook University . He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he worked with Professor George M. Whitesides on enzyme-catalyzed organic synthesis.

Research

David Walt’s research initially was focused on developing fiber optic sensors and biosensors. His laboratory demonstrated the first use of polymerization chemistry to bind sensory molecules to the surface of optical fibers. This advance started a new era in optical sensor technology—prior to this work, the field of optical sensing was a collection of recipes for making cross-linked macroscopic membranes in which dyes were trapped. His laboratory made a multitude of contributions that led to new sensing chemistries and multiple applications of sensors to clinical, environmental and process control.

In 1991, Walt published the first paper describing the use of imaging fibers for sensing, demonstrating that an optical imaging fiber could be modified with different chemistries to enable multi-analyte sensing in a unitary sensor format. By polymerizing different sensory elements on the end of an imaging optical fiber bundle, the Walt laboratory took the field of sensor arrays in an entirely new direction. Over the next several years, Walt and colleagues demonstrated multianalyte sensing using this approach, culminating in the first DNA microarray based on optical fibers. In what was to become one of Walt’s most significant scientific achievements, as well as the most commercially successful one, Walt described (and coined) "random arrays", based on assembling microscopic beads in microwell arrays. The random bead array technology was licensed to a venture-backed startup, Illumina, Inc. (Nasdaq-ILMN ), in 1998 to develop next-generation genotyping and sequencing instrumentation.

The Walt laboratory also focused its microwell arrays on systems that can detect and measure single molecules. Walt and co-workers showed that individual, stochastic enzyme substrate turnover rates for hundreds to thousands of single enzyme molecules can be monitored simultaneously using this array format. This effort led to multiple fundamental biochemistry discoveries by observing individual molecules instead of population averages. The single molecule work also resulted in the demonstration of a new method for detecting nucleic acids and proteins using digital analysis. This work led to the formation of another company—Quanterix (Nasdaq-QTRX ) that is developing a single molecule platform for high sensitivity protein diagnostics. The company has the most sensitive protein detection technology in the world, called Simoa, with better than a thousandfold improvement in sensitivity over today’s clinical methods.

Since moving to Brigham and Woman’s Hospital , Harvard Medical School , and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University , Walt’s laboratory has been focused on developing and applying new biomarker assay technologies to unmet clinical needs including early detection of breast cancer, detection of active tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, and prediction of immunotherapy response for cancer. The lab has also been very active developing ultrasensitive assays for SARS-CoV-2 antigens, vaccines, host antibodies, neutralization assays, and Long COVID, and has applied these assays to a multitude of clinical studies to understand disease pathogenesis and help advise clinical care. Walt’s lab is also pursuing fundamental research on single enzyme molecules to provide insight into enzyme mechanisms.

Walt has published over 400 manuscripts, and has over 100 patents and patent applications. Walt has been elected into both the National Academy Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine. He is a Member of the American Philosophical Society , a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering , a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors , and is inducted in the US National Inventors Hall of Fame .

Walt is Scientific Founder of Illumina Inc., Quanterix Corp. , and has co-founded multiple other life sciences startups including Ultivue, Inc. , Arbor Biotechnologies , Sherlock Biosciences , Vizgen, Inc. , Torus Biosciences , and Protillion Biosciences

Awards and honors

• 2022 - Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize From the National Academy of Engineering

• 2021 - Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine

• 2019 - Wallace A. Coulter Lectureship Award—AACC

• 2019 - National Inventors Hall of Fame, Inductee

• 2018 - Honorary Doctor of Science, University of Michigan

• 2017 - American Chemical Society Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success

• 2016 - Ralph N. Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry

• 2014 - Honorary Doctor of Science, Stony Brook University

• 2014 – American Chemical Society Gustavus John Esselen Award

• 2013 - American Chemical Society Division of Analytical Chemistry Spectrochemical Analysis Award

• 2013 - Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award

• 2010 - University of Michigan Distinguished Innovator Lecture

• 2010 - Stony Brook University Distinguished Alumni Award

• 2010 - ACS National Award for Creative Invention

• 2006 - Alexander Cruickshank Lecturer, University of Rhode Island

• 2004 - Willard Lecturer, University of Michigan, Department of Chemistry

• 2004 - Francis Clifford Phillips Lectures, University of Pittsburgh, Department of Chemistry

• 2004 - Herman Bloch Award, University of Chicago, Department of Chemistry

• 2002 - Clifford C. Hach Lecturer, University of Wyoming College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry

• 2002 - Samuel R. Scholes Lecturer, Alfred University, School of Ceramic Engineering and Materials Science

• 1999 - Professor Invitee’, Ecole Normale Superieure

• 1996 - Biosensors and Bioelectronics Award

• 1995 - National Science Foundation Special Creativity Award

• 1989 - 3M Research Creativity Award

External links

Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Wyss Institute

Walt lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professors

References

"Ordered Nanowell Arrays" P. Pantano and D.R. Walt, Chem. of Materials, 1996, 8 (12): 2832-5. Online.

"A fiber-optic DNA biosensor microarray for the analysis of gene expression" J.A. Ferguson, T.C. Boles, C.P. Adams and D.R. Walt, Nature Biotechnology, 1996, 14 (13): 1681-4. Online.

"Randomly-Ordered Addressable High-Density Optical Sensor Arrays" K.L. Michael, L.C. Taylor, S.L. Schultz and D.R. Walt, Analytical Chem., 1998, 70 (7): 1242-8. Accelerated article. Online.

“Screening Unlabeled DNA Targets with Randomly-ordered Fiber-optic Gene Arrays” F.J. Steemers, J.A. Ferguson and D.R. Walt, Nature Biotechnology, 2000, 18 (1): 91-4. Online.

“Bead-based Fiber-Optic Arrays” D.R. Walt. Science, 2000, Vol 287: 451-452. Online.

“Digital Concentration Readout of Single Enzyme Molecules Using Femtoliter Arrays and Poisson Statistics” D.M. Rissin, D.R. Walt, Nano Letters, 2006, 6 (3): 520-3. Online.

"Digital Readout of Target Binding with Attomole Detection Limits via Enzyme Amplification in Femtoliter Arrays", D.M. Rissin, D.R. Walt. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2006, 128 (19): 6286-6287. Online.

“Single-molecule enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay detects serum proteins at subfemtomolar concentrations” D.M. Rissin, C.W. Kan, T.G. Campbell, S.C. Stuart, D.R. Fournier, L. Song, T. Piech, P.P. Patel, L. Chang, A.J. Rivnak, E.P. Ferrell, J.D. Randall, G.K. Provuncher, D.R. Walt, D.C. Duffy. Nature Biotechnology, 2010, 28, 595-599. Online.

“High-Throughput, High-Multiplex Digital Protein Detection with Attomolar Sensitivity” Wu C, Dougan TJ, Walt DR, ACS nano, 2022, 16, 1, 1025–1035, January 14, 2022, Online.

"Persistent circulating SARS-CoV-2 spike is associated with post-acute COVID-19 sequelae" Swank Z, Senussi Y, Manickas-Hill Z, Yu XG, Li JZ, Alter G, Walt DR, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 76, Issue 3, 1 February 2023, Pages e487–e490. Online.