A. Scott Muerhoff B.S. '83
A. Scott Muerhoff named UW-Whitewater 2021 Distinguished Alumnus for Professional Achievement
The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater is proud to announce that A. Scott Muerhoff, who earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1983, has been selected as the university's Distinguished Alumnus for Professional Achievement for 2021. Muerhoff is director of Biologics Discovery, Analysis and Design and the Volwiler Senior Research Fellow at Chicago-based Abbott Laboratories, with more than 28 years of experience in diagnostics assay research and development with an emphasis in infectious diseases.
The award recognizes Muerhoff’s outstanding work in the field of research, including an unexpected contribution to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.
Muerhoff came to UW-Whitewater from Brookfield to study biology and participate in track and field.
“As a kid, I was fascinated with the space program. I became interested in biology while in high school. Once on campus, I declared a biology major from the get-go. I participated in track and field in college: high jump and triple jump. And I had fantastic science teachers, like Dr. Brunkhorst and Dr. Cummings. Biochemistry, taught by Dr. Johns, was a fantastic class.”
After graduating with a B.S. in biology and a minor in chemistry in 1983, he began graduate studies in biochemistry at the Medical College of Wisconsin, eventually earning a Ph.D. Along the way, he has published more than 70 manuscripts and is an inventor on 22 U.S. patents.
After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Scripps Research Institute, Muerhoff joined the Diagnostics Division of Abbott Laboratories in 1992, where the team he leads is responsible for the acquisition and implementation of new techniques for discovery of novel high affinity binding reagents and the management of Bioprocess Manufacturing Design and Analytical Chemistry Groups.
“As director of Biologics Discovery, we are primarily focused on applied, rather than basic, research,” said Muerhoff. “In any given year, we support up to 20 diagnostics product development projects in infectious diseases, oncology, cardiovascular, neuroscience, fertility and metabolics.”
That all changed in early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread.
“I bumped into one of the scientists from our Infectious Disease research team. He was struggling to develop reagents for COVID-19 diagnosis. I volunteered my team to jump in to lend a hand. By Tuesday, March 17, our mandate was clear and my entire Discovery team was on the project — all other projects were placed on indefinite hold!”
The team immediately began working on developing the critical components for several COVID-19 diagnostics tests, eventually expanding to include his entire organization of nearly 45 scientists.
“Late one Wednesday night in mid-April I was told to go to Scarborough, Maine, to support the development of a new, rapid, point-of-care diagnostic test, taking any reagents I had with me,” said Muerhoff.
He soon found himself on a corporate jet with a Styrofoam box filled with ice, en route to an Abbott site near Portland, Maine.
“At the site, we discussed the obstacles to creating a reliable test,” he said. “We were told ‘Come on guys, the world is waiting.’”
A short time later, the team was told, “Get it done in 60 days — and you need to be able to make 50 million tests a month.”
At the time, they didn’t even have a manufacturing facility. Two manufacturing facilities were built from scratch, one converting a facility the size of four football fields, and more than 3,000 people were hired. They eventually launched the test after just 120 days.
“It was a brute force effort,” said Muerhoff. “We worked 7 days a week, with waves of activity coming through my organization, from the middle of March to the middle of August. There was truly a company-wide mobilization of experts in manufacturing, supply chain management, regulatory, quality control and, of course, biologics development.”
The effort paid off. The COVID-19 antigen test his team helped develop — the BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card — received Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA in mid-August, 2020, and has even been used on the UW-Whitewater campus.
While that might be his most memorable contribution to UW-Whitewater, there are many others. He’s served on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Letters and Sciences since 2010, and, more recently, on the Master’s in Applied Biotechnology Advisory Board.
He’s also mentored students over the years, facilitating the hiring of several at Abbott Labs.
And, perhaps most importantly, he met his wife, Jodi, on campus, where she was studying early childhood education.
“We’ve been together since 1981 and married since 1984 and have four wonderful children,” he said.
