Grant Paves Way for New UCI Biomed Department

In a move designed to give first-rank status to its new medical engineering center, UC Irvine has accepted a $3-million contribution to transform the program into a department of biomedical engineering.

The department hopes to grant undergraduate and graduate degrees and is expected to broadly collaborate with the area’s growing high-tech, medical-device and diagnostic-tool industry.

“The future department of biomedical engineering will bolster UCI’s role in the rapidly developing ‘Technology Coast’ in Southern California,” Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone said. “We’re grateful to the Whitaker Foundation for its generosity.”

The goal of the Whitaker Foundation, based in Arlington, Va., is to improve human health through medical engineering. Its recent grants have concentrated on establishing biomedical engineering as an independent academic discipline and in developing links between academia and industry, said spokesman Frank Blanchard.

Officials at the foundation described UCI as a natural choice because it has strong departments in medicine and engineering and is situated in the heart of the growing medical-products industry.

More than 80 schools sought the current grants, four of which were awarded in January.

“We were impressed by the scope of UCI’s goals and the plans for achieving them,” said Peter Katona, president of biomedical engineering for the foundation.

“Southern California is a rich environment in which to build the new program, and the prospect for developing a strong and influential biomedical engineering program is excellent.”

Biomedical engineering involves creating tools that range from devices that can be used to monitor health and illnesses to equipment that can treat and diagnose disease. Common devices include replacement heart valves, pacemakers and laser scalpels.

Recent research has delved into such developments as miniaturization to create tiny mechanical robots that work as pumps or replace body parts.

Last year, UCI established a biomedical engineering center as an interdisciplinary program. That center is headed by Michael Berns, director of UCI’s Beckman Laser Institute and Medical Clinic. It will eventually fold into the School of Engineering when it becomes a separate department in about three years, officials said.

“This will get the program going financially,” said Dean Nicolaos G. Alexopoulos of the engineering school. “Once we hire a few [additional] faculty, we will have a critical mass of faculty and proceed with creation of a department.”

The interim center will handle faculty recruitment, fund-raising and curriculum design with the goal of upgrading its biomedical engineering program. The department has a near-term, minimum fund-raising goal of an additional $3.5 million, a spokesman said.

The department will combine current research and teaching activities of the School of Engineering, College of Medicine, School of Biological Sciences and School of Physical Sciences.

“Orange County is home to more than 150 biomedical-device and diagnostic companies, one of the highest such concentrations in the world,” Berns said.

“This new program, when combined with the product-development strengths of these companies, promises to make UCI a significant force in shaping the biomedical field in the 21st century.”

UCI’s biomedical engineering program will begin offering courses in the fall. It will grant its first degrees to undergraduates in 2001, and a full-degree program will follow if it receives expected approval from the faculty senate, the chancellor and the president of the UC system.

When the program is fully operational, Alexopoulos said, “we will provide locally educated researchers, advanced technology and university collaborations with industry.”

Similar departments already operate at about 50 campuses across the country, said Whitaker spokesman Blanchard.

The foundation is named for Uncas A. Whitaker, founder and chief executive of AMP, the world’s largest manufacturer of electrical connection devices.