The Lithuanian Academy of Sciences has awarded the Lithuanian Science Prize to Prof. Linas Mažutis of the VU Life Sciences Center for his work 'Microfluidic Technologies in Single Cell and Biomolecule Research (2007–2021)'.
Prof. L. Mažutis is a pioneer of microfluidic technologies in Lithuania, having received his PhD in 2009 from the University of Strasbourg (France), working together with Prof. Andrew Griffiths and his group.
After completing his PhD, Prof. Mažutis spent 4 years at Harvard University (USA), in the laboratory of Prof. David Weitz, a renowned developer of microfluidic technologies. Subsequently, he was a fellow at global research centres at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Columbia University (USA) and Memorial Sloan Cancer Center (MSKCC, USA).
Prof. Mažutis has received two prestigious Marie Curie Fellowships, several major international awards (Harvard Innovation Lab Award, Kestler Prize), and has been an invited speaker at international conferences (Keystone Conference Series, EMBL).
In Lithuania, the first microfluidics technologies were introduced in 2012 and quickly expanded into various life science fields including therapeutic antibody discovery, digital nucleic acid analysis, targeted protein evolution, single cell transcriptomics and other research.
Microfluidics-based biological research is multidisciplinary, encompassing cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry, physics, engineering, bioinformatics, and complex data analysis, which requires very different competences. It is no coincidence that much of the research has been and is being carried out in collaboration with research teams from the USA and other countries.
The work has led to the establishment of Droplet Genomics, a biotechnology company which has successfully attracted foreign investment for further growth in foreign markets and employed over a couple of dozen people.
The Lithuanian Science Prize is €38 220.