John Hewitt

John Hewitt is a veteran contributor to ExtremeTech, an engineer, and a neuroscientist. He’s also the former owner of CRE Precision, a machine shop based near Philadelphia, specializing in the design and manufacture of instruments for biomedical research.
 
His accomplishments include:

• Designed 4 kilogauss water cooled electromagnets for magnetic positioning and manipulation of cells on nanopatterned surfaces.
• Designed 3-axis magnetic manipulator for characterizing molecular motors used by the E. Coli bacterium.
• Designed double-beam polarizing interferometer for sub-nanometer strain measurements.
• Designed 10-channel laser attenuator for controlling power delivered via fiber optic cable to treat prostate cancer with locally photactivateable drugs.
• Designed MRI compatible device to compress rat spinal cord in vivo to evaluate mechanical properties and evaluate extent of injury and subsequent recovery
• Designed incubator compatible 2-axis polymer stretcher to study assembly of rat cardiomyocytes seeded onto biopolymers into functional beating assemblies.

John earned his B.S. in Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Drexel University in 1991. In 1999 he completed masters and graduate neuroscience coursework at LSU and presented a thesis entitled, “Modeling field distribution and activation of auditory neurons in the electrically stimulated inner ear.” In 1999 he was invited by NATO to present this thesis to an international symposium on computation hearing in Florence, Italy.
 
Watch 2014 Biotech Symposium Seminar — Dr. John Hewitt. Follow his Twitter feed.