Mehmet is the founding director of the NIH BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital, which is an essential component in the Institute. He is internationally recognized for his multidisciplinary approach to biomedical problems in the areas of low-temperature biology and biostabilization, tissue engineering and artificial organs, and microsystems bioengineering in clinical medicine and biology, as well as nanotechnology in clinical medicine and global health.  Among the more than 100 graduate and postgraduate students trained by Dr. Toner, many today occupy major academic positions.  Multiple of his alumni have received the NSF Career Award, NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, NIH First Award, NIH Director’s Young Investigator Award, and multiple are now Fellows of AIMBE or ASME. A number of his former students secured endowed chairs or other prestigious awards such as Howard Hughes Medical Investigator (HHMI).

Dr. Toner is a member of the Board of Trustees of Özyeğin University, and a member of the President’s Council of Olin College of Engineering. In 2010, he was selected to serve on the scientific advisory boards of centers at prominent universities including Tufts,  Columbia, Rutgers, Minnisota, North Carolina and Brown Universities. Dr Toner is a member of many national and international professional committees, and serves on the editorial board of many scientific journals including Cryobiology, Cryo-Letters, Cell Preservation Technology, Annual Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, and Nanomedicine.  He has served on many national and international panels and review boards, including National Institutes of Health (NIH) Study Sections, National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award panels, NSF Nanoscience panel, NIH Nanotechnology and Tissue Engineering panel, and several DARPA strategic planning panels.

Dr. Toner has published more than 300 original papers and has also delivered more than 400 invited, keynote and plenary presentations. In 1994, he was recognized by the YC Fung Faculty Award in Bioengineering from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In 1998, Dr Toner was selected to become a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.  In 2007, he became a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2008, he was given “One-of-the hundred” award by the MGH Cancer Center. He was also recognized by the magazine “Popular Mechanics” as one of the top ten inventors in 2008. In 2010, he received the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Team Award. In 2012, he was selected to become a Fellow of the Society for Cryobiology. In 2013, he received the H.R. Lissner Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.  Dr. Toner serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of multiple biotechnology and medical device companies, and has been involved as a scientific founder of multiple startup companies.

Mehmet was born in Istanbul, Turkey in July 1958 and he received a Bachelor of Science degree from Istanbul Technical University in 1983 and an M.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1985, both in Mechanical Engineering.  He subsequently completed his Ph.D. in Medical Engineering at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) in 1989.  He joined the faculty at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering in 1989, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1996, and to Professor in 2002.  Currently, he is the Helen Andrus Benedict Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School, and Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Dr. Toner has received funding from NIH, NSF, DARPA, Whitaker Foundation, National Textile Center, and many industrial outfits.  Dr. Toner’s former students and trainees hold positions at many prestigious universities and companies, including MIT, Harvard, UCSD, UC Irvine, UC Davis, Rutgers U, University of Minnesota, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Amsterdam, Keio University, University of Alberta, Amgen, Bristol-Myers, and BioLife.

Representative publications

Yu M, Bardia A, Aceto N, Bersani F, Madden MW, Donaldson MC, et al. Cancer therapy. Ex vivo culture of circulating breast tumor cells for individualized testing of drug susceptibility. Science. 2014 Jul; 345(6193):216-20. PubMed PMID: 25013076

Berendsen TA, Bruinsma BG, Puts CF, Saeidi N, Usta OB, Uygun BE, et al. Supercooling enables long-term transplantation survival following 4 days of liver preservation. Nat Med. 2014 Jul; 20(7):790-3. 
PubMed PMID: 24973919; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4141719

Lim EJ, Ober TJ, Edd JF, Desai SP, Neal D, Bong KW, et al. Inertio-elastic focusing of bioparticles in microchannels at high throughput. Nat Commun. 2014; 5:4120. 
PubMed PMID: 24939508

Karabacak NM, Spuhler PS, Fachin F, Lim EJ, Pai V, Ozkumur E, et al. Microfluidic, marker-free isolation of circulating tumor cells from blood samples. Nat Protoc. 2014 Mar; 9(3):694-710. PubMed PMID: 24577360; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4179254

Ozkumur E, Shah AM, Ciciliano JC, Emmink BL, Miyamoto DT, Brachtel E, et al. Inertial focusing for tumor antigen-dependent and -independent sorting of rare circulating tumor cells. Sci Transl Med. 2013 Apr; 5(179):179ra47. 
PubMed PMID: 23552373; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3760275

Yu M, Bardia A, Wittner BS, Stott SL, Smas ME, Ting DT, et al. Circulating breast tumor cells exhibit dynamic changes in epithelial and mesenchymal composition. Science. 2013 Feb; 339(6119):580-4. 
PubMed PMID: 23372014; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3760262

Liong M, Hoang AN, Chung J, Gural N, Ford CB, Min C,et al. Magnetic barcode assay for genetic detection of pathogens. Nat Commun. 2013; 4:1752. 
PubMed PMID: 23612293; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3635151

El-Haibi CP, Bell GW, Zhang J, Collmann AY, Wood D, Scherber CM, et al. Critical role for lysyl oxidase in mesenchymal stem cell-driven breast cancer malignancy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Oct; 109(43):17460-5. PubMed PMID: 23033492; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3491529

Yu M, Ting DT, Stott SL, Wittner BS, Ozsolak F, Paul S, et al. RNA sequencing of pancreatic circulating tumour cells implicates WNT signalling in metastasis. Nature. 2012 Jul; 487(7408):510-3. 
PubMed PMID: 22763454; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3408856

Aldridge BB, Fernandez-Suarez M, Heller D, Ambravaneswaran V, Irimia D, Toner M, et al. Asymmetry and aging of mycobacterial cells lead to variable growth and antibiotic susceptibility. Science. 2012 Jan; 335(6064):100-4. PubMed PMID: 22174129; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3397429

Information

Mehmet Toner, Ph.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Center for Engineering in Medicine, Room 1401
114 16th Street 
Charlestown MA 02129

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