Dr. Michael Gerlt

Michael Gerlt is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Lund University, where he works at the interface of acoustofluidics, microfluidic device engineering, and extracellular vesicle (EV) technologies. In March 2026, he will join Heidelberg University as a Junior Research Group Leader, where he will establish the group Biomedical Microfluidics. His research aims to develop next-generation acoustofluidic platforms for EV-based cancer detection integrating engineering, physics, chemistry, and EV biology to advance precision diagnostics.

Michael Gerlt received a B.Sc. (2013) and M.Sc. (2015) in Electrical Engineering from Bergische Universität Wuppertal and the Technical University of Munich, respectively, with specialisations in nanoelectronics, semiconducting devices, and flexible organic photodiodes. He earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (ETH Zurich, 2021) under Prof. Jürg Dual. His dissertation focused on ultrasonic particle manipulation for cell-secretome analysis, bacteria transformation, and metal 3D printing, bridging acoustics, microfluidics, biology, and materials science.

Following his doctorate, he held postdoctoral positions at ETH Zurich (D-CHAB, 2021–2023) and Lund University (2023–2026). At ETH Zurich, he developed a microfluidic platform for high-shear protein aggregation studies and engineered strategies for efficient cargo loading into extracellular vesicles, demonstrating more than a 100-fold improvement compared to bulk loading methods. At Lund University, he pioneered Acoustochromatography, a patented method that enables rapid, high-purity enrichment of extracellular vesicles from microlitre-scale blood plasma, enabling downstream proteomics and biomarker discovery from ultra-low sample volumes.

His work combines acoustic particle manipulation, microfluidics, device fabrication and optimization, 3D printing, and biophysical analysis of nanoscale biological particles. He has collaborated extensively with research groups across engineering, chemistry, and biosystems science at institutions including ETH Zurich, Lund University, and TU Munich. 

Michael’s broader research interests include acoustofluidics, micro- and nanofabrication, EV biology and analytics, biomarker discovery, and microfluidic integration for biomedical and clinical applications.