In 2018, we told you about an important development in the lab of UC Santa Barbara professor Kevin Plaxco, a professor in the Bioengineering Department as well as the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who then was also the director of the UCSB Center for Bioengineering. The article centered around a class of electrochemical biosensors that could help address the fact that medicinal dosing remains an in-exact science, leaving open the possibility of underdosing, which can render a medicine ineffective, and overdosing, which can be toxic and cause a range of symptoms that may include organ failure. 

Since 2018, the sensing technology his team invented has evolved considerably and developed to assume a patch-like form similar to a glucose monitor worn by many diabetics. The device is now in clinical trials being conducted by a company in Melbourne, Australia, which has an exclusive licensing right to the patent and plans to take it to market. 

So successful is the sensor that it has now propelled Plaxco to election as a 2025 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Announced on December 11, the new cohort comprises 185 members — 169 distinguished academic and institutional inventors from the United States and 16 International Fellows. All new Fellows will receive their medals at the NAI 15th Annual Conference, to be held in Los Angeles on June 4, 2026.

“I am exceedingly grateful to have been selected as an NIA Fellow,” Plaxco said when reached in Melbourne, where he is on sabbatical at Monash University’s Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences. “I was trained in, and have always loved basic, foundational science, which I find intellectually stimulating and rewarding and just plain fun to pursue. And for most of my career, that was the focus of my research efforts. In recent years, however, my focus has increasingly shifted towards engineering, and this product and the recognition from the NIA have come of that.” 

“Kevin Plaxco’s election as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors is high praise that speaks volumes about not only his ability as a scientist, but also the diversity of his interests, his hunger for new knowledge, and his desire to create a new technology, which, we expect, will soon be serving the needs of millions of people,” said Umesh Mishra, dean of The Robert Mehrabian College of Engineering at UCSB.”

Plaxco’s sensor addresses a key obstacle to the precise dosing of drugs, which is that everyone metabolizes and excretes medicines at different rates, variation that dosing based on age, sex, or body mass does not always capture with sufficient accuracy to assure safe and effective drug delivery. Of particular note, differences between the biology of men and women can further complicate drug dosing; women are 4 times more likely than men to suffer from adverse dosing effects.

While there are sensing technologies that can detect a single, specific molecule in the body, such as glucose, which is important for diabetics, Plaxco’s device is the only technology that combines an ability to, in theory at least, sense any molecule in the body. This can provide clinicians real-time information on the amount of a drug in the body, or the concentration of biomarkers indicative of the effectiveness or even toxicity of the drug.

The journey has taken a long time. Plaxco’s group first published work in this technology, which stemmed directly from his earlier, basic-science work on how proteins fold, in 2005. In the interim, his team learned how to expand their sensors to a wider range of targets, and how to get them to perform well in the body for periods of many days. Along the way, they have filed and been awarded many patents, protecting their ideas for commercialization. At present, about a half-dozen companies are pursuing such commercialization..

NAI Fellowship is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors. Together, members of the 2025 class hold more than 5,300 U.S. patents and include recipients of the Nobel Prize, the National Medals of Science and Technology & Innovation, and members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, among others. This year’s U.S. Fellows represent 127 universities, government agencies, and research institutions, across 40 states. 

Spanning every major field of discovery, including quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and regenerative medicine, NAI Fellows are tackling the biggest and most pressing issues of our time. Their success in translating research into products and services that improve lives demonstrates the continuing importance of the U.S. patent system, reads the NAI release.

The NAI Fellows program was founded in 2012 and has grown to include 2,253 distinguished researchers and innovators, who hold more than 86,000 U.S. patents and 20,000 licensed technologies. Their innovations have generated an estimated $3.8 trillion in revenue and 1.4 million jobs. 

“NAI Fellows are a driving force within the innovation ecosystem, and their contributions across scientific disciplines are shaping the future of our world,” said Dr. Paul R. Sanberg, FNAI, President of the National Academy of Inventors. “We are thrilled to welcome this year’s class of Fellows to the Academy. They are truly an impressive cohort, and we look forward to honoring them at our 15th Annual Conference in Los Angeles next year.”