Ji-Xin Cheng is the 16th BU researcher to be named an NAI fellow.

Awards

Boston University Biomedical Engineer Ji-Xin Cheng Named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

Precision medicine pioneer holds more than 30 patents and is the cofounder of multiple companies

Light helps us find our way through the dark, keeps us warm, and allows plants to breathe life into our planet. In his lab at Boston University, engineer Ji-Xin Cheng turns light to another purpose: precision medicines and technologies that improve human health. He has pioneered a microscope that enhances cancer detection, a device to zap away antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and a technique for mapping cells that could help take on Alzheimer’s disease.

His innovations have fostered more than 30 patents, catalyzed multiple start-ups—and now prompted his election to the National Academy of Inventors’ (NAI) latest class of fellows.

According to the NAI, becoming a fellow is the “highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors.” To qualify, researchers must have played a major role in “outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”

An expert on manipulating photons—the particles that carry electromagnetic energy and make up light—Cheng is a former BU Innovator of the Year and serves as a scientific advisor to companies in the US and Europe.

“I am very pleased to receive this honor and join this wonderful NAI class,” says Cheng, the BU College of Engineering Moustakas Chair Professor in Optoelectronics and Photonics. “My name Ji-Xin (继新) means continuous innovation in Chinese. I guess that I was born for this career!”

Cheng is the 16th BU researcher to be named an NAI fellow; other honorees this decade include engineers Greg Blonder, Christopher Chen, Miloš Popović, and Joyce Wong.

“The bar for selection to the NAI is extremely high, and Professor Cheng richly deserves this recognition,” says Elise Morgan, ENG dean and Maysarah K. Sukkar Professor of Engineering Design and Innovation. “He has never been afraid to try imaginative new approaches while seeking solutions to complex and deadly challenges like prostate cancer. His pioneering imaging technologies are born out of multidisciplinary insights and have incredible potential for understanding, treating, and preventing disease.”

Announcing the newest fellows, NAI president Paul R. Sanberg said they were a “driving force within the innovation ecosystem, and their contributions across scientific disciplines are shaping the future of our world.” According to the organization, its more than 2,200 fellows’ innovations “have generated an estimated $3.8 trillion in revenue and 1.4 million jobs.”

Last year, Cheng also won a BU Ignition Award, given to projects ready to make the leap from the lab to the market. That award will help him commercialize a new microscopy technology that illuminates the chemical makeup of nanoparticles, a breakthrough with potential applications in drug discovery and the screening of cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases.

“My major research focuses on development of next-generation imaging tools that can visualize chemistry in life and can detect how chemistry is altered in diseases,” says Cheng, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering and of electrical and computer engineering. 

In addition to building powerful new microscopes, Cheng says one of his team’s goals is to “unveil hidden molecular markers that drive cancer aggressiveness, progression of Alzheimer’s disease, and antibiotic resistance.”

Although pleased to win the NAI’s recognition, Cheng’s advice for aspiring inventors is to not get into inventing for accolades or the prospect of financial success—even if those things eventually happen.

“There’s no formula for becoming a successful inventor,” says Cheng, “but one thing should be true: great inventions should be driven by curiosity and a desire to benefit humankind.”