Andrew K. Godwin, PhD is the Chancellors Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences endowed Professor and the Director of Molecular Oncology in the Department of Pathology at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC). He is a leader in the field of translational research and precision medicine. A native of Lawrence, Kansas, Dr. Godwin graduated with highest distinction from the University of Kansas (KU) with a bachelor’s degree in Cellular Biology. He obtained his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania while carrying out his thesis research at Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC) in Philadelphia. While at FCCC he had the pleasure of learning from “giants” in their respective fields of cancer-focused science. He was appointed leader of the FCCC’s Cancer Center Support Grant Ovarian Cancer Program in 2008 and served as co-leader of the Women's Cancer Program from 2009 to 2010. He was the founding director of both the Clinical Molecular Genetics/Pathology Laboratory and the Biosample Repository at FCCC since their inception in 1995 and 1999 respectively, and until leaving FCCC.

Dr. Godwin was recruited to KUMC as the director of Molecular Oncology and as the Associate Director for Translational Research within the KU Cancer Center in October 2010 after 26 productive years at FCCC. His engaged participation in the cancer center led to being appointed the Deputy Director in 2013 and his unwavering efforts helped to gain NCI designation in 2012/2017 and comprehensive designation in 2022. He founded the Clinical Molecular Oncology Laboratory, a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited molecular diagnostics laboratory in 2012. He was appointed the Division Director for Genomic Diagnostic for the KU Health System in 2020. He also founded the Center for Genetics Services and Health Equity, to address health disparities in medical underserved populations regionally and nationally.

Dr. Godwin holds secondary appointments as a Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, and the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics, and Immunology. He also leads the ovarian cancer research-working group, is a member of the Investigator Initiated Trial Steering Committee, serves as the founding Scientific Director for the Biomarker Discovery Laboratory, the Director of the KU Cancer Center’s Biospecimen Shared Resource, and the KU Medical Center’s Biospecimen Repository Core Facility. He was named the Vice Chair for the Breast Translational Medicine subcommittee of the Southwest Oncology Group in 2018 and was appointed to the National Cancer Institute’s NCTN Core Correlative Sciences Committee in 2021.

Dr. Godwin heads KU’s institutional efforts in precision medicine. In 2016 he founded the Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine which is currently supported by a Phase 2 Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (P20 GM130423) grant from the NIGMS. He is also a co-founder of a startup company, Sinochips Diagnostics, a private reference laboratory that provides pharmacogenomic testing to provide a road map for which drugs will be most effective for each individual patient.

He was named a Kansas Bioscience Authority Eminent Scholar in 2010 and the University of Kansas School of Medicine Chancellor’s Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences Endowed Professor in 2012. In 2014, Dr. Godwin received the KUMC School of Medicine’s Achievement Award for the mentoring of post-doctorate students. Of his awards, he is most proud of being acknowledged for his years of mentoring. He has mentored over 150 trainees, including high school students, undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral associates/fellows, medical students/fellows, visiting scientists, and junior faculty during his academic career. He was awarded the KU Medical Center’s Faculty Investigator Research Award in 2015, the University of Kansas Cancer Center Director’s William Jewell Team Science Award in 2017, the KUCC Director’s Basic Science Award and the Chancellor’s Club Award for Research in 2018, and the Dolph C. Simons, Sr. Higuchi Award in the Biomedical Sciences in 2020 – the state higher education system’s most prestigious recognition for scholarly excellence. Most recently, Godwin was presented with the 2021 KU School of Medicine Excellences in Mentoring (Faculty) award and the 2021 Cancer Center Director’s Award in Mentoring and was named the 2022 Lead Scholar in Biomedical Sciences by the Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Most recently he presented the 2024 Outstanding Mentorship in Pathology Award by the University School of Medicine and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in recognition of dedication to the mentorship and education of future pathologists.

Dr. Godwin is internationally recognized for his molecular biology/genetic studies of sarcoma (gastrointestinal stromal tumors and Ewing sarcoma), breast and ovarian cancer, and his efforts to help bridge the gap between basic and clinical science to improve patient care. As a result of his efforts, Dr. Godwin has been continuously since his first faculty appointment at the Fox Chase (in 1993) and has secured extramural funding totaling >$250M. He has published over 550 peer-reviewed manuscripts and scholarly review articles (h index = 143; >95,000 citations) and is the author of 4 patent applications.

Dino Di Carlo received his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002 and received a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco in 2006. From 2006-2008 he conducted postdoctoral studies in the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He has been on the faculty in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA since 2008 and now as Professor of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering serves as the Chair of the Department and as the director of the Cancer Nanotechnology Program in the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. His research pioneered the use of inertial fluid dynamic effects for the control, separation, and analysis of cells in microfluidic devices. His recent work extends into numerous other fields of biomedicine and biotechnology including directed evolution, cell analysis for rapid diagnostics, new amplified molecular assays, next generation biomaterials, and phenotypic drug screening. He has also been a leader in technology entrepreneurship: He co-founded and currently serves on the board of directors of five companies that are commercializing UCLA intellectual property developed in his lab (CytoVale, Vortex Biosciences, Tempo Therapeutics, Forcyte Biotechnologies and Ferrologix). Among other honors he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2016, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2014, was awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development award and the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, the Packard Fellowship and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award, and received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award and Coulter Translational Research Award.

Professor Greg Nordin joined the faculty of the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at Brigham Young University in 2005. From 1992 to 2005 he was at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) where he was the founding director of the university's Nano and Micro Devices Center, which was created as an independent research center by the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees. While director of the center, he created a 7,600 sq. ft. cleanroom facility for nano and microfabricated devices to pursue research activities in photonics, MEMS, microfluidics, and sensors. Prof. Nordin has led numerous large research programs, and has been principal investigator on research grants from government and industry totaling $18M. He is the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award (1996) for promising young faculty, and twice received the UAH Outstanding Researcher Award as well as the UAH Foundation Award for Research and Creative Achievement. Prof. Nordin's current research is focused on developing 3D printing for microfluidic devices and applications. In March 2018 Prof. Nordin gave a TED talk on his group's work, which is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T122fzOEVYE.

Noah Malmstadt is Professor at the University of Southern California. He received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech and a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. Following postdoctoral work at UCLA, he joined the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at USC in 2007. Malmstadt is the recipient of a 2012 Office of Naval Research Young Investigator award. His research focuses on microfluidic strategies to facilitate material fabrication and biophysical analysis. He has pioneered the integration of ionic liquids as solvents in droplet microreactors and the application of microfluidic systems to synthesizing biomimetic cell membranes. Microfluidic analytical techniques he has developed include methods for measuring the permeability of cell membranes to druglike molecules and techniques for measuring ionic currents through membrane proteins.

Professor Soper (since 2016) is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kansas. At KUMC, Prof. Soper holds an adjunct appointment in the Cancer Biology Department and is a member of the KU Cancer Center. He also holds an appointment at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Ulsan, South Korea, where he is a World Class University Professor.

As a result of his efforts, Prof. Soper has secured extramural funding totaling >$125M, has published over 245 peer-reviewed manuscripts (h index = 70; >17,000 citations); 31 book chapters and 71 peer-reviewed conference proceeding papers, and is the author of 12 patents. He is also the founder of a startup company, BioFluidica, which is marketing devices for the isolation and enumeration of liquid biopsy markers. Soper recently founded a second company, Sunflower Genomics, which is seeking to market a new DNA/RNA single-molecule sequencing platform. His list of awards includes Ralph Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, Chemical Instrumentation by the American Chemical Society, the Benedetti-Pichler Award for Microchemistry, Fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of Applied Spectroscopy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, R&D 100 Award, Distinguished Masters Award at LSU and Outstanding Scientist/Engineer in the state of Louisiana in 2001. Finally, Prof. Soper has granted 50 PhDs and 7 MS degrees to students under his mentorship. He currently heads a group of 15 researchers.

His major discoveries include: (1) Technology for the detection of liquid biopsy markers that can manage a variety of diseases using a simple blood test (test has been demonstrated in multiple myeloma, pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, pancreatic, breast, colorectal, prostate, and ovarian cancers); (2) new hardware and assay for the point-of-care diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke; (3) single-molecule DNA and RNA sequencing nanotechnology; and (4) currently working on a home-test for COVID-19 infections (handheld instrument and the associated assay.