Albert Folch Folch ( ; born September 25, 1966) is a Spanish/Catalan scientist, writer, and artist. He is currently a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington who is known for his research into Microfluidics and BioMEMS as well as his works of scientific art. Background Folch received his B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Barcelona (U.B.) in 1989. In 1994, he received his Ph.D. in Surface Science and Nanotechnology from the U.B.'s Physics Dept. under Dr. Javier Tejada's supervision. During his Ph.D. he was also a visiting scientist (1990–91) at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Berkeley, California) working on Atomic Force Microscopy under Dr. Miquel Salmeron. From 1994 to 1996, he was a postdoc at M.I.T. developing microdevices under the advice of Martin A. Schmidt (EECS Dept.) and Mark S. Wrighton (Chemistry). In 1997, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Mehmet Toner as a postdoc at Harvard University's Center for Engineering in Medicine to work on BioMEMS and Tissue Engineering. In 2000 he joined the University of Washington's Dept. of Bioengineering (Seattle), where he is a full professor. In 2001 he received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and in 2014 he was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows Class of 2015. He served on the advisory board of the BioMEMS journal Lab on a Chip from 2006 until 2017 and now serves on the Editorial boards of Technology and Micromachines. Scientific research and teaching The Folch Lab works on the interface between microfluidics and cancer. The lab develops microfluidic devices to test multiple cancer drugs on a small, live, intact tumor biopsy at high fidelity in order to help doctors decide which drug is most efficacious. The lab also develops 3D printing approaches to make microfluidic devices as easy to use as smartphones and make them easily available to clinicians in order to enable novel cancer diagnostics and therapies. As part of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum of the University of Washington's Bioengineering Department, Folch teaches a course on BioMEMS and a course on Cancer Biosensors. Artistic activity The Folch Lab produces microscopy images of microchannels and cells that it then uses to run an artistic outreach program called "BAIT", short for "Bringing Art Into Technology". The micrographs act as baits to entice people to read the accompanying texts (the science) displayed next to the images.