Denis Wirtz is the Vice Provost for Research and Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering Science at Johns Hopkins University. He is an expert in the molecular and biophysical mechanisms of cell motility and adhesion and nuclear dynamics in health and disease. Notably, he was the first to establish how a 3-dimensional environment fundamentally affects the way cancer cells migrate, providing more biologically and medically-relevant information than 2D studies. He also pioneered the technique of particle-tracking microrheology to probe the rheological properties of complex fluids and living cells and tissues. He is a professor in the Departments of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering, and in the Departments of O