Rate My Professor Tom Soh

Hyongsok Tom Soh is the W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Electrical Engineering in Stanford University School of Engineering, Professor of Radiology (Diagnostic Sciences Laboratory), and Professor of Bioengineering. He earned his B.S. with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science with Distinction from Cornell University in 1992, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1999. Following his doctorate, Soh served as Technical Manager of the MEMS Device Research Group at Bell Laboratories and Agere Systems from 1999 to 2003. He then joined the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials in 2003, advancing to Associate Professor in 2007 and Professor in 2011. At UCSB, he held the Ruth Garland Endowed Chair from 2011 to 2015, served as Co-Director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering from 2008 to 2015, and as Associate Director of the California NanoSystems Institute from 2011 to 2015. In 2015, his laboratory relocated to Stanford University, where he has held his current professorships.

Soh's research in analytical biotechnology centers on high-throughput screening, directed evolution, and integrated biosensors, with his laboratory dedicated to developing synthetic biomaterials and biosensor systems for early disease detection and targeted therapies. Key innovations include real-time biosensors for continuous biomarker measurements in live animals, aptamer generation via high-throughput sequencing and particle display, and molecular switches such as aptamer-antibody chimeras. He has received numerous awards, including the Academy for Radiology & Biomedical Imaging Research Distinguished Investigator Award in 2020, election to the National Academy of Inventors in 2017, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator award in 2017, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering Fellowship in 2014, Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2012, John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010, NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award in 2009, Beckman Young Investigator Award in 2005, and ONR Young Investigator Award in 2004. Notable publications include “A mucosa-inspired biochemical sensor with long-term stability in complex biological matrices” (Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2024), “Aptamer-antibody chimera sensors for sensitive, rapid and reversible molecular detection in complex samples” (ACS Sensors, 2024), “A fluorescence sandwich immunoassay for real-time continuous detection of glucose and insulin in live animals” (Nature Biomedical Engineering, 2021), and “A massively parallel screening platform for converting aptamers into molecular switches” (Nature Communications, 2023). His contributions have advanced in vivo continuous biosensing and multiplexed detection technologies.