The award is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement, bestowed by the president of the United States on America’s leading innovators
By Benjamin Boettner
(BOSTON) — On January 3, Wyss Institute Core Faculty member David Walt, Ph.D., who also is a Professor of Pathology at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School (HMS), an Associate member at the Broad Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor, received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI), which the president of the United States bestows on individuals who have made exemplary achievements in science, technology, and innovation to strengthen the nation’s well-being.
Walt and his 24 fellow 2024 laureates were bestowed the NMTI by President Biden on January 3 in an official White House ceremony. Established by Congress in 1959 and administered by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the NMTI is the nation’s highest scientific honor reserved for the recognition of outstanding contributions in biology, computer sciences, educational sciences, engineering, geosciences, mathematical and physical sciences, and social, behavioral, and economic sciences that have had a lasting impact on America’s competitiveness, standard of living, and quality of life. It is also meant to inspire future generations of Americans to prepare and pursue technical careers to keep America at the forefront of global technology and economic leadership.
Walt has pioneered fundamentally important technologies that revolutionized the process of genetic and proteomic analysis, and enabled the costs of DNA sequencing and genotyping to plummet nearly a millionfold in the last decade. Having become gold standards in the U.S. and the world, his technological inventions enabled a wide variety of applications, ranging from the detection of many diseases and screening of embryos for genetic defects before in vitro fertilization, to identifying patients’ metabolic profiles to ensure proper drug dosages and improving the resistance of crops against plant diseases.
With his research group at the Wyss Institute and BWH, he currently focuses on the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases, detection of active tuberculosis, Long COVID and other infectious diseases, and early detection of breast, ovarian and pancreatic cancers, among other goals. He also is a founder and the faculty lead of the Wyss Institute’s Diagnostic Accelerator (Wyss DxA), which, through deep collaborations between bioengineers, clinicians and industry participants, works toward the fast creation of diagnostic technologies to solve high-value clinical problems.
Walt is the Scientific Founder of Illumina Inc., Quanterix Corp., and has co-founded multiple other life sciences startups including Ultivue, Inc., Arbor Biotechnologies, Sherlock Biosciences, Vizgen, Inc., and Torus Biosciences. He previously has received numerous national and international awards and honors for his fundamental and applied work in the field of optical microwell arrays and single molecules, including the 2023 National Academy of Engineering’s Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, the 2021 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine, the 2017 American Chemical Society Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success, and the 2016 Ralph Adams Award in Bioanalytical Chemistry, among others. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and is inducted in the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame.