The Precision Biosystems Laboratory, directed by Prof. Craig Forest, is focused on fundamental engineering advancements, the development of miniaturized, high-throughput robotic instrumentation, and the application of the two to advance biomolecular science. Our research program is in the emerging bio-nano field—at the intersection of bioMEMS, machine design, neuroengineering, genetics, optics, and manufacturing. In the past 5 years, the instruments developed in the laboratory have led to the genesis of a new field of intracellular, in vivo robotics for neuroscience, a virus detector that is a 10-100x throughput improvement over pre-existing technologies, a device for personalizing drug dosage to prevent heart attacks, and a high throughput genome engineering technique. Fundamental advancements have been made in micro-fabrication, modeling flow of photons and fluids, and neuron identification within the living brain. These instruments, and the discoveries they enable, are unlocking new frontiers in neuroscience and genetic science.

“New directions in science are launched by new tools much more often than by new concepts. The effect of a concept-driven revolution is to explain old things in new ways. The effect of a tool-driven revolution is to discover new things that have to be explained.” – Imagined Worlds, Freeman Dyson

Craig Forest joined Georgia Tech in August 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Forest also holds program faculty positions in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. He conducts research on miniaturized, high-throughput robotic instrumentation to advance neuroscience and genetic science, working at the intersection of bioMEMS, precision machine design, optics, and microfabrication. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was a research fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He obtained a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in June 2007, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2003, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2001. He is cofounder/organizer of one of the largest undergraduate invention competitions in the US—The InVenture Prize, and founder/organizer of one of the largest student-run prototyping facilities in the US—The Invention Studio.  He was a Sandia National Laboratories MEMS Fellow, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, was awarded the Georgia Tech Institute for BioEngineering and BioSciences Junior Faculty Award (2010) and was named Engineer of the Year in Education for the state of Georgia (2013).  In 2007, he was a finalist on the ABC reality TV show “American Inventor.”