Biosensors & Bioelectronics

Thomas J Webster

Thomas J Webster
Co-director and Associate Professor, Indo-U.S.Center for Biomaterials for Health care
Brown University, USA

Biography

Thomas J. Webster is an associate professor for the School of Engineering and Department of Orthopaedics at Brown University. His degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995) and in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (M.S., 1997; PhD, 2000). Prof. Webster is the current director of the Nanomedicine Laboratories (currently at 33 members) and has completed extensive studies on the use of nanophase materials to regenerate tissues. He has graduated over 47 post-doctoral students, and thesis completing B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. students. To date, his lab group has (or will by the end of the year) generate over 8 textbooks, 48 book chapters, 233 invited presentations, at least 343 peer-reviewed literature articles and/or conference proceedings, at least 504 conference presentations, and 24 provisional or full patents. Some of these patents led to the formation of three companies. His research on nanomedicine has received attention in recent media publications including MSNBC (October 10, 2005), NBC Nightly News (May 14, 2007), PBS DragonFly TV (covered across the US during the winter, 2008), ABC Local Nightly News via the Ivanhoe Medical Breakthrough Segment (covered across the US during the winters of 2008 and a separate research segment in 2010) and the NY Times (to appear this summer). His work has been on display at the London and Boston Science Museums. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanomedicine (the first international journal in nanomedicine), has organized 13 conferences emphasizing nanotechnology in medicine, and has organized over 49 symposia at numerous conferences emphasizing biological interactions with nanomaterials. Prof. Webster has received numerous honors including, but not limited to: 2002, Biomedical Engineering Society Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award; 2003, Outstanding Young Investigator Award Purdue University College of Engineering; 2005, American Association of Nanomedicine Young Investigator Award Finalist; 2005, Coulter Foundation Young Investigator Award; 2006, Fellow, American Association of Nanomedicine; and 2010, Distinguished Lecturer in Nanomedicine, University of South Florida. He was recently appointed director of the Indo-U.S. Center for Biomaterials for Healthcare.

Research Interest

Professor Webster′s research explores the use of nanotechnology in numerous applications. Specifically, his research addresses the design, synthesis, and evaluation of nanophase (that is, materials with fundamental length scales less than 100 nm) materials as more effective biomedical implants. These include self-assembled organic materials which mimic the natural nanometer dimensions of tissues.