Wouter Metsola van der Wijngaart

Interested in joining my team?

Prospective interns/bachelor's/master's thesis students: drop me an email.

PhD or Postdoc candidates already having a stipend or research grant: drop me an email.

PhD or Postdoc candidates without a stipend or research grant: Please check the KTH main website for open positions. I cannot employ you or provide you with a stipend outside the positions posted as open on the KTH website.

About me:

Wouter is a professor in micro and nanosystems with a research focus on microfluidic and lab-on-a-chip systems, micro/nanostructured soft matter, biosensors and biomedical microdevices.

Selected publications:

M. Osaid, M. H. Marino Miguélez, B. Bayrak, B. B. Özmen-Capin, V. Özenci, andW. van der Wijngaart, “ Plug-and-Play Centrifuge-Only Device for Rapid Sepsis Diagnosis (2025).Advanced Healthcare Materials, e03651. DOI: 10.1002/adhm.202503651

M.H. Marino Miguélez, M. Osaid, E. Hallström, K. Kaya, J. Larsson, V. Kandavalli, C. Wählby, J. Elf, &W. van der Wijngaart (2025). Culture-free detection of bacteria from blood for rapid sepsis diagnosis.npj Digital Medicine, 544. DOI: 10.1038/s41746-025-01948-w

Iseri E, Nilsson S, van Belkum A,van der Wijngaart W,and Özenci V. (2024). Performance of an innovative culture-based digital dipstick for detection of bacteriuria.ASM Microbiology Spectrum 12:e03613-23. DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.03613-23

Kavand, H., Visa, M., Köhler, M.,van der Wijngaart, W., Berggren, P. & Herland, A. (2023). 3D Printed Biohybrid Microstructures Enable Transplantation and Vascularization of Microtissues in the Anterior Chamber of the Eye.Advanced Materials,36, 2306686. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202306686

Kaya, K., Kravberg, A., Scarpellini, C., Iseri, E., Kragic, D. &van der Wijngaart, W. (2023). Programmable Matter with Free and High-Resolution Transfiguration and Locomotion.Advanced Functional Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202307105

Marques, F., Schliemann, I.,van der Wijngaart, W., Arnelo, U., Roxhed, N. & Baldaque-Silva, F. (2023). New through-the-needle brush for pancreatic cysts assessment : a randomized control trial.iGIE, 2(4). DOI: 10.1016/j.igie.2023.08.006

Shafagh, R. Z., Youhanna, S., Keulen, J., Shen, J. X., Taebnia, N., Preiss, L. C. ,van der Wijngaart, W., Lauschke, V. M. (2022). Bioengineered Pancreas-Liver Crosstalk in a Microfluidic Coculture Chip Identifies Human Metabolic Response Signatures in Prediabetic Hyperglycemia.Advanced Science, 2203368-2203368. DOI: 10.1002/advs.202203368

Yasuga, H., Iseri, E., Wei, X., Kaya, K., Di Dio, G., Osaki, T. ...van der Wijngaart, W. (2021). Fluid interfacial energy drives the emergence of three-dimensional periodic structures in micropillar scaffolds.Nature Physics, 17(7), 794-800. DOI: 10.1038/s41567-021-01204-4

Gustafsson, L., Panagiotis Tasiopoulos, C., Jansson, R., Kvick, M., Duursma, T., Gasser, T. C.,van der Wijngaart, W., Hedhammar, M. (2020). Recombinant Spider Silk Forms Tough and Elastic Nanomembranes that are Protein‚ÄêPermeable and Support Cell Attachment and Growth.Advanced Functional Materials, 30(40), 2002982. DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202002982

Gustafsson, L., Jansson, R., Hedhammar, M.,van der Wijngaart, W., Structuring of Functional Spider Silk Wires, Coatings, and Sheets by Self-Assembly on Superhydrophobic Pillar Surfaces.Advanced Materials 2018, 30, 1704325. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201704325

Shafagh, R. Z., Vastesson, A., Guo, W.,van der Wijngaart, W. & Haraldsson, K. T. (2018). E-Beam Nanostructuring and Direct Click Biofunctionalization of Thiol-Ene Resist.ACS Nano, 12(10), 9940-9946. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.8b03709

Zhou, X., Haraldsson, K. T., Nania, S., Ribet, F., Palano, G., Heuchel, R. ...van der Wijngaart, W.(2018). Human Cell Encapsulation in Gel Microbeads with Cosynthesized Concentric Nanoporous Solid Shells.Advanced Functional Materials, 28(21). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201707129

Short CV

Wouter van der Wijngaart was born in Belgium in 1973. He is married and has three children. Wouter received the M. Sc. degree in Electrotechnical Engineering, the Degree of Philosophic Academy and the Mathematics Education Degree, all from the KU Leuven, Belgium, in 1996. Wouter received the Ph. D. degree in microsystem technology at KTH in 2002, where in 2005 he promoted to Associate Professor and in 2010 to full Professor.

Wouter is very active in his scientific community. For example, he is/was Technical Programme Chair of the IEEE TRANSDUCERS 2027 conference, Social Events Chair of the MicroTAS 2020 online conference,  General Conference Chair of the IEEE Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) 2015 conference.  He was editorial (2011-2016) and since 2016 executive board member of the "Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering".

Wouter published more than 160 internationally peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. His publications have more than 6000 citations and he has an h-index of 39 according to Google. Wouter has given invited, keynote or plenary talks on numerous occasions at international conferences.

Academic Leadership at KTH

2023-          Teacher representative KTH University Board

2010-          Deputy Head Department of Micro- and Nanosystems

2021- 2025  Departmental representative for gender equality, diversity and equal terms

2022-2023   Head EECS Faculty Assembly

2019-2022   Impact leader EECS

2020            Initiator and coordinator of the EECS Faculty Diversity Initiative

2020-2021   Coordinator KTH RAE for Intelligent Systems and Medical Technology

2015-2017   Member KTH Electrical Engineering faculty recruitment committee

2014-2015   Founder and Chairman KTH Electrical Engineering Faculty Assembly

2013            Innitiator of the annual 1.5 MEuro research funding programme “Health, Medicine and Technology” 

2011-2013   Director KTH Life Science Platform

2011-2013   Board member Stockholm regional Centre for Technology in Medicine and Health

2006-2008   Member Executive Management group of the KTH eLAB cleanroom facilities

Seven spin-off companies

The following companies were co-founded by me, or spinoffs from research:

Easypark is world-leader in mobile parking payments.

Mercene Labs develops and markets off-stoichiometric thiol-ene polymers.

UTI-lizer develops a clinically relevant point-of-care test for bacterial urinary tract infections.

Lucky Loop Medical develops a cytology brush for endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) of pancreatic cysts for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Extendo Medical develops endovascular biopsies.

MyFuelCell (now discontinued) developed fuel cells for mobile electronic and automobile applications.

XValve(now discontinued) developed microscale pneumatic valves.

International collaborations

Wouter and his team members were also the overall project manager for the European framework projects H2020 ITN ND4ID, FP7 NOROSENSOR, FP7 ROUTINE, FP7 INTOPSENS, FP7 POSITIVE and FP6 Q2M, and workpackage leaders in IMI RAPP-ID and FP6 SABIO.

Some previous research projects

(sorry for outdated links if any...)

• Advanced PDMS microfabrication
• Nanophotonic biosensors for immunoassays
• Photonic biosensors for whole blood sepsis diagnostics
• Porous silicon-based photonic biosensors
• Gas microvalves
• Low friction fluidic surfaces
• Batch integration of high-quality materials on microsystems
• Microfluidic components for Lab-on-Chip applications

Keywords: Microfluidics, Nanofluidics, Microsystems, Nanosystems, MEMS, NEMS, micromachining, polymer, OSTE, PDMS, biomaterials, spider silk, nanowires, gold nanowires, DNA stretching, droplet microfluidics, cell encapsulation, therapy, capillary, lateral flow test, biosensor, diagnostic, lab-on-a-chip, biomedical, micro fuel cell, DNA, superhydrophobic, virus, breath, cell encapsulation, microvalve, photonic, nanophotonic, funny cats :-)