James J. Hickman is the founder and current Chief Scientist of a biotechnology company, Hesperos, Inc., that is focusing on cell-based systems for drug discovery and toxicity. He is also the Founding Director of the NanoScience Technology Center and a Professor of Nanoscience Technology, Chemistry, Biomolecular Science, Material Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Central Florida. Previously, he held the position of the Hunter Endowed Chair in the Bioengineering Department at Clemson University. Dr. Hickman has a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Chemistry. For the past twenty-five years, he has been studying the interaction of biological species with modified surfaces, first in industry and in the latter years in academia. While in industry he established one of the first bioelectronics labs in the country that focused on cell-based sensors and their integration with electronic devices and MEMS devices. He is interested in creating hybrid systems for biosensor and biological computation applications and the creation of functional in vitro systems for human body-on-a-chip applications. He has worked at NSF and DARPA in the area of biological computation. He has 135 publications and 20 book chapters, in addition to 27 issued patents out of 47 total patent applications. He is a Fellow of both the American Institute of Medical and Biomedical Engineers (AIMBE) (2004) and the American Vacuum Society (AVS) (2007). He was a Board Member for AIMBE from 2009-2013 and Co-Chaired 6 AIMBE/NIH Workshops on “Validation and Qualification of New In Vitro Tools and Models for The Pre-clinical Drug Discovery Process” held at the NIH Campus, Bethesda, MD (2012 – 2017). He was also a Charter Member, NIH Bioengineering of Neuroscience, Vision and Low Vision Technologies (BNVT) Study Section. Dr. Hickman along with Dr. Michael Shuler, won the Lush Prize, in the Science Category, which Supports Animal Free Testing in 2015.