Jason Ben Shear (born February 28, 1967) is an American chemist and expert in biomaterials and bioengineering. He is currently Professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin.[1] Shear has been considered one of the pioneers of two-photon photolithography.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

Jason B. Shear
Born (1967-02-28) February 28, 1967 (age 57)
Alma materUniversity of Texas at Austin, Stanford University
Scientific career
FieldsBiomedical optics, biophotonics, nanotechnology, analytical chemistry
Institutions
Doctoral advisorsRichard N. Zare, Richard H. Scheller, Watt W. Webb (postdoctoral), Thomas E. Mallouk [de] (undergraduate)
Websitesites.utexas.edu/shearlabs

Scientific career edit

Shear received his BS in chemistry from UT Austin in 1989. He then moved to Stanford University to work with Richard Zare and completed his PhD in 1994. He was later an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University where he worked with Watt W. Webb in the laboratory that earlier developed the first two-photon excitation microscopy instrument. Shear returned to Austin to start his own independent lab at the University of Texas in 1996.[9][10]

The Shear group has developed methods for performing solution-phase chemical separations on time frames more than 1000-fold shorter than previously accomplished, offering insights into reaction pathways of transient reaction products that are more easily characterized from their electrophoretic mobilities than from measurable spectroscopic properties. This method, based on photochemical preparation of reaction intermediates, enabled compounds to be electrophoretically probed using extremely large electric fields over distances as small as several micrometres on timescales as small as several microseconds.[11][12]

The Shear group has also developed micro-3D-printing technologies for organizing cellular environments, a technology that allows cellular populations to be characterized under well-defined conditions and on scales in which ensemble behaviours begin to emerge. Of particular impact has been their use of these methods to probe bacterial group behaviours that underlie enhanced virulence, including quorum sensing and population-dependent antibiotic resistance.[13][14][15]

Shear's lab further developed novel strategies for engineering functionality into 3D printed biomaterials to provide environmentally controlled volume/shape change, chemical capabilities, and electronic properties. He has pioneered high-sensitivity multiphoton-based sensing technologies for microanalyses, developing various strategies for characterizing picoliter-sized biological samples using capillary electrophoretic analysis. Using these methods, the group has demonstrated strategies for analyzing volumes commensurate with subcellular volumes for spectrally diverse native chromophores present in attomole to zeptomole quantities. His lab was involved in foundational work developing broad-based sensor array devices for analysis of various solution-phase sample types, ranging from measurements of bodily fluids such as saliva to the determination of small-molecule components in consumables.[16][17][18]

Awards edit

HHMI Predoctoral Fellow (1990-1994) • Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award (1997) • Beckman Young Investigators Award (1997) • Searle Scholars Program Award, Kinship Foundation (1998) • Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1999) • Top 100 Young Innovator citation, MIT Technology Review (1999) • Noted for a “Chemical Development of the Year” by Chemical & Engineering News (2003) • Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas protégé (2004, 2005) • American Chemical Society Arthur F. Findeis Award in Analytical Chemistry (2005) • Texas Instruments Visiting Professor in Bioengineering, Rice University (2010–11)

Personal life edit

Jason's grandfather was Murray Shear, widely considered to be the Father of Chemotherapy. Jason's father David Shear was a professor of biophysics and held faculty appointments at SUNY Buffalo, the University of Georgia at Athens, and the University of Missouri at Columbia.

References edit

  1. ^ "The Shear Research Group at UT Austin". The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  2. ^ "3D-printed structures reveal bacterial chit-chat". The Conversation. 7 October 2013. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  3. ^ "'Honey, I Shrunk the Cell Culture': Scientists Use Shrink Ray for Biomedical Research". The University of Texas at Austin. 23 October 2018. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  4. ^ "Arthur F. Findeis Award for Achievements by an Analytical Scientist". The American Chemical Society. 4 April 2019. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  5. ^ "Jason Shear, Beckman Fellow". Beckman Foundation. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  6. ^ "Jason Shear - Tech Titans by Tech Review". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  7. ^ "New Sloan Laureates". Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  8. ^ "Texas Professor creates a novel shrink ray". KXAN features. 12 November 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
  9. ^ Shear, Jason. "NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship". National Science Foundation Grants. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  10. ^ "Searle Scholar Shear". The Searle Scholars Program. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
  11. ^ Plenert, M. L.; Shear, J. B. (2003). "Microsecond electrophoresis". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 100 (7): 3853–3857. Bibcode:2003PNAS..100.3853P. doi:10.1073/pnas.0637211100. PMC 153011. PMID 12629208.
  12. ^ Ritschdorff, Eric T.; Plenert, Matthew L.; Shear, Jason B. (2009). "Microsecond Analysis of Transient Molecules Using Bi-Directional Capillary Electrophoresis". Analytical Chemistry. 81 (21): 8790–8796. doi:10.1021/ac901283y. PMC 3169189. PMID 19874052.
  13. ^ Connell, Jodi L.; Wessel, Aimee K.; Parsek, Matthew R.; Ellington, Andrew D.; Whiteley, Marvin; Shear, Jason B. (2010). "Probing Prokaryotic Social Behaviors with Bacterial "Lobster Traps"". mBio. 1 (4). doi:10.1128/mBio.00202-10. PMC 2975351. PMID 21060734.
  14. ^ Connell, J. L.; Ritschdorff, E. T.; Whiteley, M.; Shear, J. B. (2013). "3D printing of microscopic bacterial communities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (46): 18380–18385. Bibcode:2013PNAS..11018380C. doi:10.1073/pnas.1309729110. PMC 3832025. PMID 24101503.
  15. ^ Spivey, Eric C.; Xhemalce, Blerta; Shear, Jason B.; Finkelstein, Ilya J. (2014). "3D-Printed Microfluidic Microdissector for High-Throughput Studies of Cellular Aging". Analytical Chemistry. 86 (15): 7406–7412. doi:10.1021/ac500893a. PMC 4636036. PMID 24992972.
  16. ^ Kaehr, Bryan; Shear, Jason B. (2008). "Multiphoton fabrication of chemically responsive protein hydrogels for microactuation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (26): 8850–8854. Bibcode:2008PNAS..105.8850K. doi:10.1073/pnas.0709571105. PMC 2449329. PMID 18579775.
  17. ^ Gostkowski, Michael L.; McDoniel, J. Bridget; Wei, Jing; Curey, Theodore E.; Shear, Jason B. (1998). "Characterizing Spectrally Diverse Biological Chromophores Using Capillary Electrophoresis with Multiphoton-Excited Fluorescence". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 120: 18–22. doi:10.1021/ja9727427.
  18. ^ Goodey, Adrian; Lavigne, John J.; Savoy, Steve M.; Rodriguez, Marc D.; Curey, Theodore; Tsao, Andrew; Simmons, Glen; Wright, John; Yoo, Seung-Jin; Sohn, Youngsoo; Anslyn, Eric V.; Shear, Jason B.; Neikirk, Dean P.; McDevitt, John T. (2001). "Development of Multianalyte Sensor Arrays Composed of Chemically Derivatized Polymeric Microspheres Localized in Micromachined Cavities". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 123 (11): 2559–2570. doi:10.1021/ja003341l. PMID 11456925.