Beebe named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

David Beebe, the John D. MacArthur Professor and Claude Bernard Professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is among the National Academy of Inventors’ 2023 class of fellows.

Beebe (PhDEE ’94), who’s also a professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory, leads the multidisciplinary Microtechnology, Medicine, and Biology Lab. He also is a fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and a member of the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

Beebe holds 67 U.S. patents and 19 international patents. Of the U.S. patents, 50 have been licensed or optioned to commercial entities, as have 13 international patents.

His research into microfluidic technologies and microenvironments has led to the development of multiple research tools, streamlined point-of-care and lab-based diagnostics, and lowered cost testing for diseases. He is influential in organ-on-a-chip technologies that mimic the functions of organs on a microchip and allow the testing of drugs in a small-scale environment with a goal of improving clinical treatment decisions. His lab research currently includes cancer biology, multi-kingdom interactions, infectious disease and continued small-scale physics and technology development.

In addition to collaborating with established life sciences companies such as Gilson, Beebe is a serial entrepreneur, having founded or served on the board of Ratio, Tasso, Lynx Biosciences, Onexio Biosystems, Salus Discovery, and Flambeau Diagnostics. Beebe’s current work with Flambeau Diagnostics was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s mobile, rapid testing platform can be performed in lab-equipped vans and adapted for different infectious diseases.

UW-Madison researchers Guang-Hong Chen, a professor of medical physics and radiology, and Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of virology, are also among the new class of NAI fellows, bringing the university’s total representation to 18.