Dr. Guigen Zhang

In Fantastic Voyage : Live Long Enough to Live Forever authored by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman, the authors said

The number of needle pricks that diabetic patients undergo each year for blood sugar tests could be reduced to zero with developing nanotechnology. Professors Zhang, Kisaalita, and Zhao of the University of Georgia are working on a technology known as glancing-angled deposition, or GLAD, in which silicon or other materials are vaporized into nanostructures that can serve as tiny biosensors within the body. Once this technology is perfected, these nanosensors can be implanted anywhere in the body and provide continuous measurement of blood sugar levels.

Dr. Guigen Zhang is a professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Georgia (UGA). He also holds an adjunct faculty appointment at Northwestern University Medical School. The research focus of his Micro/Nano Bioengineering research group at UGA centers on the interdisciplinary frontier of Biomedical Engineering and Nanotechnology. Specifically, the group is developing novel nanostructures and integrating these nanostructures into active micro/nano-systems (both electromechanical and electrochemical) for biomedical and biological sensing and detection applications.
 
He has coauthored many publications including Evaluating the viscoelastic properties of biological tissues in a new way in the Journal of Musculoskeletal and Neuronal Interactions, Pattern Formation During Wetting of Vertically Aligned Nanorod Arrays in Nano Letters, Mechanical Characteristics of Nano-Scale Springs in Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology, and Nanopillar Arrays with Superior Mechanical Strength and Optimal Spacing for High Sensitivity Biosensors for Nanotech2005
 
Guigen has served as principal and co-principal investigators on numerous grants (totaling about $3M) from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other funding agencies. Over the past three years, he has been invited as a member of the National Science Foundation review panel six times in the areas of micro and nano science and engineering. He has also served as session chairs at many regional, national and international conferences.
 
He promotes comprehensive engineering education emphasizing both understanding of fundamental engineering principles and hands-on skills. He has taught many engineering courses to graduate and undergraduate students, including nanotechnology, nanostructures and biosensors, biomaterials and tissue engineering, multiphysics modeling using finite element analysis, and experimental methods for engineers.
 
Guigen has published extensively in refereed journals, peer-reviewed proceedings and transactions, and book chapters, and made numerous technical presentations and invited seminars in the areas of biomedical engineering and nanotechnology in the US, Spain, Australia and China. He graduated in 1994 with a PHD in Bioengineering from Clemson University, Clemson, SC.