For his leadership in creating new tools to observe and measure the internal chemistry and biology of individual living cells in real time, accelerating previous studies by factors of 10,000 and more. Through multidisciplinary collaborations between federal agencies, universities and industry, Jimenez combined ultrafast lasers, custom microfluidics, biochemistry, molecular biology and directed evolution to make real-time measurements of the inner workings of individual living cells and to select cells with unique attributes for further research.