Paul Kenis is an expert in microfluidics, more specifically in the design, fabrication, and characterization of microchemical systems for a wide range of applications in energy and biology. Along with radiopharmaceutical synthesis, his group is developing microfluidic technologies for other biomedical applications, such as the screening of antibiotics and solid form screening of pharmaceuticals. Kenis’s group is also involved in the application of microfluidics for basic biology studies, including crystallization of membrane proteins and intercellular signaling. The group also frequently serves as a collaborator to researchers who hope to utilize the enabling capabilities of his group’s microfluidic platforms to perform biological experiments or syntheses that are hard to pursue otherwise. For example, in collaboration with Gaskins’ lab, intracellular redox-sensitive biosensors were developed to study cancerous cells which are known to have a disrupted redox regulation.
Kenis received his BS in Chemistry from the Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, and his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Twente, Netherlands. Then, he completed his postdoctoral research at Harvard University underGeorge Whitesides. Currently, he is a professor and Head of the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois. He is also the theme leader for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.