David Juncker

 

From: Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Education: Diploma (European Master equivalent, 1995) and PhD (2002) from the Institute of Microtechnology (now part of EPFL) of the University of Neuchâtel. 

Work Experience: Visiting Scientist at the National Metrology Institute of Japan, research positions at IBM Zurich Research Laboratory and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).

Biography: Upon completing his studies, David obtained a fellowship from the Swiss Academy of Engineering Science for a one year visiting scientist stay at the National Metrology Institute of Japan in Tsukuba from 1997-1998. He conducted his PhD research at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory from 1999-2002. He then pursued his studies as a Post-doc first at IBM Zurich until 2004, and then one year at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH). David started as an assistant professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department of McGill University in 2005, was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2011, and became a full professor in 2016. As of early 2018, David serves as departmental chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department at McGill University. David currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Bioengineering.

David’s group’s research is a mix of grand challenges and of curiosity driven interdisciplinary efforts in bioengineering including microfluidics, microfabrication, imaging, diagnostics, assay multiplexing, biomarker discovery, and organ-on-a-chip. Some of the highlights of the lab’s accomplishments include the ideation and realization of capillary microfluidic systems and capillaric circuits (spun-off as Sensoreal), culminating in microfluidic chain reactions and the ELISA-chip; microfluidic probes that form microfluidics without microchannels; thread-based microfluidics; promoting reproducibility in science via conceptual and experimental advances in surfaces for cell migration and in antibody microarrays; affordable, scalable cross-reactivity free multiplexed sandwich immunoassays thanks to antibody colocalization microarrays and colocalization-by-linkage assays on microparticles (spun-off as Nomic Bio and the nELISA platform); uncovering high prevalence of circulating tumor cell clusters in cancer patients via microfiltration; mechanically-matched brain implants; 3D printing (DLP & LCD) and digital manufacturing of functional microfluidic systems; single extracellular vesicle (EV) size photometry & protein co-expression analysis using a conventional fluorescence microscope; conceptualization and demonstration of co-enrichment of proteins in EVs.


The lab’s focus is on exploring, inventing and using micro- and nano-bioengineering technologies to address open questions in biology and medicine, and for the fun of it. Ongoing projects include 3D printing and photoinks and their use to advance capillaric circuits and point-of-care diagnostics for infectious diseases; microneedles; organ-on-a-chip, and bioaerosol capture and analysis. Further, Single cells and CTC analysis; single EV analysis, labeling, and EV signaling; LNP manufacturing and analysis; ultrasensitive & ultrafast immunoassays; and liquid biopsies and biomarker discovery for cancer and other diseases.

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