to probe the micromechanical properties of living cells in normal conditions and disease state." Wirtz was elected fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010 for "his seminal contributions to the understanding of basic cellular functions through the development and application of novel biophysical methods grounded in statistical mechanics and polymer physics." In 2011, he was elected member of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF). Wirtz is also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biophysical Society, American Society for Microbiology, American Society for Cell Biology, American Society for Microbiology, and Society of Rheology. Wirtz is a 1996 recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award for: “A Research and Teaching Program in Complex Fluids Dynamics.”. In 1997, he received the Whitaker Foundation’s Biomedical Engineering Award. In collaboration with Benjamin Shapiro, Elisabeth Smela and Pamela Ann Abshire, Wirtz was awarded the 2004 Physical Science Invention of the Year Award by the University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization. The team invented a Cell Sensor Based Pathogen Detection that will enable “selective pathogran detection by exploiting the signalizing machinery of living cells. Since 2008, he has been the Editor-in-Chief of Cell Health and the Cytoskeleton. He is on the Editorial Boards of Scientific Reports, Cell Adhesion & Migration, World Journal of Biological Chemistry, and TECHNOLOGY. Wirtz formerly served on the editorial boards of Physical Biology, Journal of the Royal Society Interface Focus, Biophysical Journal, Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine, as an ad hoc editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, as the guest editor of a Special Issue of Physical Biology on physical oncology, and as the editor of the Cell Biophysics section of Comprehensive Biophysics. Wirtz also served as an expert advisor to the study panel of the international Assessment of Physical sciences and Engineering advances in Life sciences and Oncology (APHELION), which was commissioned by the National Cancer Institute and National Science Foundation in order to “determine the status and trends of applying physical sciences and engineering principles to oncology research and development in leading laboratories and organizations in Europe via an on-site peer review process.” Recent plenary talks include: ASME 2015 4th Global Congress on NanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology; 2015 Cell Mechanics, Morphogenesis and Pattern Formation Workshop, Isaac Newton Institute at the University of Cambridge; 2015 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit; 2015 American Society for Cell