Meet the faculty: C. Wyatt Shields IV

C. WyattShields IV

  • Assistant Professor
  • Austin Endowed Faculty Fellow
  • CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
  • BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING PROGRAM
  • MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING PROGRAM
Address

Office: JSCBB D218

Education

PhD, Duke University, Biomedical Engineering (2016)
BS, University of Virginia, Biomedical Engineering (2011)

Awards

  • Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (2025)
  • Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2024)
  • Emerging Investigator,Nanoscale(2024)
  • Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (2023)
  • Frontiers of Engineering Participant, National Academy of Engineering (2023)
  • Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science and Engineering (2022)
  • NIH Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (2022)
  • Pew Biomedical Scholar (2022)
  • ONR Young Investigator Program Award (2022)
  • NSF CAREER Award (2022)
  • Beckman Young Investigator Award Finalist (2021)
  • Best On-Demand Talk from the Controlled Release Society (2020)
  • Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring, Duke University (2016)
  • Exceptional Student Award, ISAC at CYTO (2015)
  • NSF Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide(2014)
  • Exceptional Student Award,ISAC at CYTO (2013)
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2012)

Selected Publications

  • Lee, JG; Jeon, SJ; Duarte, AR; Ticknor, M; Minnis, MB; Hayward, RC; Shields IV, CW. “Shape-morphing active particles with invertible effective polarizability for configurable locomotion and steering” Nature Communications2026. 17(1): 51.
  • Raj, RR; Day, NB; Loomis, NE; Cutting, E; Gupta, A; Shields IV, CW. “Transport of adoptive cell transfers with magnetic helical microrobots” Small2025. 21(42): e05946.
  • Kwan, MMC; Day, NB; Konigsberg, IR; Thoresen, E; Busch, CE; Harrell, AG; Davidson, E; Yang, IV; Shields IV, CW. “Particle shape modulates the function of adoptive macrophage transfers” Advanced Healthcare Materials2025. 14(31): e01348.
  • Day, NB; Orear, CR; Hunter, AN; Kwan, MMC; Hamadani, CM; d’Auvergne, A; Guo, J; Tanner, EEL; Shields IV, CW. “Ionic liquid-mediated delivery of ruxolitinib to skin using an adhesive topical hydrogel system” Advanced Healthcare Materials2025. 14(27): e01838.
  • Lee, JG; Petraccione, J; Trese, KA; Hughes, AC; Ausec, TR; Salzmann-Sullivan, M; Su, LJ; Kim, MT; Goodwin, AP; Feng, FX; Flaig, TW; Shields IV, CW. “Soft extrudable dendritic particles with nanostructured tendrils for local adhesion and drug release to bladder cancers” Advanced Materials2025. 37(38): 2505231.
  • Kreienbrink, KM; Cruse, ZA; Kumari, A; Shields IV, CW. “Precise surface patches on active particles of arbitrary shape through microstenciling” Nature Communications2025. 16(1): 6062.
  • Duarte, AR;* Thome, CP;* Hoertdoerfer, WS; Praetzel, CR; Pellicciotti, A; Gupta, A; Bevan, MA; Shields IV, CW. “Dielectrophoretic polarizability of surface-modified particles for studying induced-charge electroosmotic flows” Advanced Functional Materials2025. 35(29): 2424557.
  • Thome, CP; Fowle, JP; McDonnell, P; Zultak, J; Jayaram, K; Neumann, AK; López, GP; Shields IV, CW. “Acoustic pipette and biofunctional elastomeric microparticle system for rapid picomolar-level biomolecule detection in whole blood” Science Advances2024. 10(42): eado9018.
  • Lee, JG;* Raj, RR;* Day, NB;* Shields IV, CW. “Microrobots for biomedicine: Unsolved challenges and opportunities for translation” ACS Nano2023. 17(15): 14196–14204.
  • Lee, JG; Raj, RR; Thome, CP; Day, NB; Martinez, P; Bottenus, N; Gupta, A; Shields IV, CW. “Bubble-based microrobots with rapid circular motions for epithelial pinning and drug delivery” Small2023. 19(32): 2300409.
  • Thome, CP; Hoertdoerfer, WS; Bendorf, J; Lee, JG; Shields IV, CW. “Electrokinetic active particles for motion-based biomolecule detection” Nano Letters2023. 23(6): 2379–2387.
  • Tanjeem, N; Minnis, MB; Hayward, RC; Shields IV, CW. “Shape-changing particles: From materials design and mechanisms to implementation” Advanced Materials2022. 3(34): 2105758.

Research Interests

Drug Delivery, Biosensing,Active Matter,Soft Materials, Colloid and Interface Science, Microfluidics

Our group is broadly interested in biosensing and drug delivery. The distinguishing approach we take is through engineering particle systems, especially those that interface with biology and controllably respond to external stimuli.We workat the intersection of materials, soft matter physics and bioengineering to rationally design colloidal and supracolloidal particles for a range of applications.We take inspiration from nature, which efficiently assembles matter across length scales that encode a rich variety of behaviors when stimulated by energy.We have three guiding objectives, to: 1) understand how particles interact in and out of equilibrium and, in turn, how to control their behaviors by tailoring their nano and microscale properties such as shape, size and composition; 2) apply new insights to create collections of "smart" particles that perform useful tasks such as actuate and release encapsulated payloads; and 3) integrate our pipeline of new materialsto advance biosensing and drug delivery by developing new diagnostic and therapeutic platforms for a variety of indications.