Professor Aaron R. Wheeler, University of Toronto, Canada, has been awarded the 2012 Heinrich Emanuel Merck Prize for his work in developing digital microfluidic methods for the extraction and quantification of estrogen. The prize, which is worth € 15,000, is awarded to scientists who are less than 45 years old by EMD Millipore, the Life Science division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The prize was presented at EMD Millipore’s Technology Exposition in Bedford, Massachusetts, USA, on October 17, 2012, where Professor Wheeler delivered an award lecture.

Aaron Wheeler studied at Furman University, South Carolina, USA, and worked for his Ph.D., awarded in 2003, with Richard N. Zare at Stanford University, USA. From 2003–2005, he was a postdoctoral researcher with Robin Garrell at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, and in 2005, he started his independent career at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Wheeler´s research group is interested in using digital microfluidics in applications such as integrated systems for in situ cell culture and analysis, clinical sample preparation techniques for rapid evaluation by mass spectrometry, and combinatorial multistep chemical synthesis and catalysis.

• Synchronized Synthesis of Peptide-Based Macrocycles by Digital Microfluidics,
  M. J. Jebrail, A. H. C. Ng, V. Rai, R. Hili, A. K. Yudin, A. R. Wheeler,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 8625–8629.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201001604
• The Digital Revolution: A New Paradigm for Microfluidics,
  Mohamed Abdelgawad, Aaron R. Wheeler,
  Adv. Mater. 2009, 21(8), 920–925.
  DOI: 10.1002/adma.200802244