Livia S. Eberlin

Eberlin is the daughter of Marcos Nogueira Eberlin, a Brazilian chemist at the University of Campinas.[3] She was born in Campinas, and was a student at the University of Campinas herself; she earned her bachelor's degree there in 2007. During her undergraduate program, she did summer research in chemistry at Purdue University,[4] where her father also had research ties.[3] She continued at Purdue for her doctorate, and completed it in 2012; her dissertation, Developments in ambient mass spectrometry imaging and its applications in biomedical research and cancer diagnosis, was supervised by R. Graham Cooks.[4][5]

After postdoctoral research at Stanford University with Richard Zare, she joined the chemistry faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012.[4]

In her research, she developed a pen-like device, called the "MasSpec Pen" or "The Cancer Pen", that she claims can detect cancerous tissue by touching it during surgery, freezing and slicing it, and examining the slices under a microscope.[6] The pen allows surgeons to achieve a better understanding of which tissues are deemed harmful and should be removed. As a co-principal investigator, at the University of Texas at Austin, Eberlin has developed a way to detect thyroid cancer, in hours, without surgery. This test uses the same technique as her “MasSpecPen”, mass spectroscopy. It is two-thirds more accurate than the test already in use, fine-needle aspiration.[7] As well as her work on cancer diagnosis, Eberlin has also worked with Cooks and her father on the use of mass spectrometry to quickly detect counterfeit money.[3] Eberlin is concerned about the representation of women and diversity in science. In interviews, she has stressed the importance of women in higher levels of academia as well as leadership.[8]

Eberlin was named a Forbes "30 Under 30" in 2015.[9] She won the Marion Milligan Mason Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2017. The award is given every two years to promising young female researchers in chemistry.[10] She won a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. in 2018 for her research on the use of mass spectrometry "to differentiate more quickly and accurately diseased from healthy tissues during surgery".[1][2] She is the first UT Austin professor to win MacArthur grant this century.[11] The award consists of a $625,000 no-strings-attached grant. According to the foundation, this award goes to "extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential".[12] She also won a Moore Inventor Fellowship in 2018.[13]

• Livia S. Eberlin Research Group
• Livia S. Eberlin publications indexed by Google Scholar
• MassSpec Pen