The driving vision of Dr. James (“J”) Hickman is fundamental to Hesperos’ technological “Human-on-a-Chip” platform. He published the first serum-free, defined culture system for neuronal systems in 1995 (Schaffner, Barker et al. 1995) and has now extended this from rat to mouse, both embryonic and adult, as well as to human. J has also pioneered the establishment of functional in vitro systems and was one of the first to report toxicity studies from neurons on microelectrode arrays in a defined system back in the 90’s (Jung, Cuttino et al. 1998). Dr. Hickman is the sole or co-inventor on multiple pending and issued U.S. and international patents. He has presented over 135 invited presentations with more than 160 total presentations, as well as over 100 publications and 17 book chapters, in addition to 16 patents.