Sebastian Maerkl

Biography

Prof. Maerkl received B.S. degrees in Biology and in Chemistry from Fairleigh-Dickinson University in 2001. He then joined the Biophysics and Biochemistry Department at the California Institute of Technology and contributed to the early development of microfluidic technology. For his graduate work Prof. Maerkl was awarded the Demetriades-Tsafka-Kokalis prize for the best Caltech PhD thesis in the field of Biotechnology. He was also awarded 1st place at the Innovator’s Challenge, a competition amongst inventors and entrepreneurs from Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Caltech. After graduating in 2008, Prof. Maerkl accepted a position as an Assistant Professor at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in the Institute of Bioengineering and the School of Engineering and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2015. In 2012 and received the Prix SSV – Ambition for dedication to teaching and promotion of EPFL students and the school at large. Prof. Maerkl was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant, an HFSP Program Grant, a SystemsX.ch RTD grant, a SNF Sinergia grant, and a SNF NRP 78 Covid-19 research grant, amongst others. Prof. Maerkl published over 50 peer-reviewed publications and 6 patents, gave over 90 invited seminars, organised several international conferences and workshops, and serves as a reviewer for national and international funding agencies and journals. The lab hosted one Fulbright Scholar, two Whitaker and one Think Swiss Fellow. His lab is currently working at the interface of micro-engineering, systems biology, synthetic biology, and molecular diagnostics. Prof Maerkl started the EPFL iGEM team in 2008 and has been teaching and advising the teams from 2008 to 2020. During this period the EPFL teams won 8 Gold, 2 Silver, and 1 bronze medal and were awarded 5 prices. In 2019, the EPFL iGEM team became the Grand Prize Winner in the Overgrad category and the first Swiss team to have won the competition.