Marcel Bruchez

Director, Professor of Chemistry and Biological Sciences

Dr. Bruchez develops new approaches to paint living cells and organisms to reveal their inner workings. As a graduate student, he modified quantum dots – nanometer-sized crystal particles – so that they could be used to tag proteins and label cells. After graduate school, he founded Quantum Dot Corporation, which grew these materials into a significant and commercially successful tool for single molecule biological detection and for multicolor analysis of cells, ultimately acquired by Invitrogen Corporation. At Carnegie Mellon University, Dr. Bruchez is extending the limits of fluorescent microscopy and fluorescent probes, and is applying these tools to the study of how protein synthesis, trafficking and degradation is coordinated and regulated in biological systems, and using photochemical tools to measure and manipulate biological processes in living organisms.

Dr. Bruchez holds 30 patents, has published 74 peer-reviewed papers and has received numerous recognitions for his work. Science recognized his development of quantum dots for biological detection as one of the Top Ten Scientific Innovations of 2003. In 2006, Dr. Bruchez received the Lord Rank Prize for Optoelectronics for “realization of quantum dot nanocrystals as biological labels.”

Dr. Bruchez received a B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley.