Phone: 650.723.1230 • Fax: 650.723.8544 • E-mail: delp@stanford.edu • Web: bioengineering.stanford.edu

STANFORDbioEngineering

SCOTT L. DELP

Professor and Chair

Department of

Bioengineering

School of Engineering

Clark Center, Room S172

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305-5444

September 2005

Dear Friend of Bioengineering,

It is a major milestone—and a great pleasure—for us to be able to write this first-everupdate for the new Department of Bioengineering. We are sending this to members of theextended Stanford community who, through their interest and support, have made it possibleto launch this new department.

A Most Unusual DepartmentThat this department has entered the Stanford scene is itself something of a happening. Thisis the first new department created at Stanford in many years. More important, it is the onlydepartment at Stanford shared by two schools—Engineering and Medicine. Our missionstatement sums up our commitment to a truly hybrid approach:

The mission of Stanford’s Department of Bioengineering is to create a fusion of engineering and the life sciences that promotes scientific discovery and thedevelopment of new biomedical technologies and therapies through research and education.

We are particularly grateful to Jim Plummer, the dean of the School of Engineering, andPhil Pizzo, the dean of the School of Medicine. They have put tremendous time, energy, andenthusiasm into dealing with the unique administrative challenges of a shared department.

Founding FacultyThe launch of the department is the outcome of many years of planning and has roots inseveral pioneering programs in the two schools. In particular, the Division of BiomechanicalEngineering (BME) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, launched by DennisCarter, served to nucleate a faculty group that would help create the new department. ScottDelp, the founding chair of bioengineering, came from this division. Scott is recognizedinternationally for his research on computational analysis and modeling of complexsystems, including the dynamics of neuromuscular disorders such as cerebral palsy. OtherBME faculty members who are helping us include Dennis Carter himself, who has taken anactive leadership role in developing bioengineering graduate programs, and Charles Taylor(recently promoted to associate professor with tenure). Effectively integrating with the BMEprogram will be one of the important challenges faced by the BioE department.

Other engineering departments have contributed key leaders in the founding faculty of theBioE department. Greg Kovacs, professor of electrical engineering, has taken on the

formidable and critically important job of developing a three-term core curriculum forgraduate students. Jim Swartz, jointly appointed as professor in chemical engineering andbioengineering, has assumed key roles both in course development and in recruiting newfaculty.

From the School of Medicine, Paul Yock is co-chair of the BioE department while retaininga partial appointment in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. Norbert Pelc, professor ofradiology, is chairman of the current faculty search committee and will direct the imagingeducational program for the BioE department. Matt Scott, professor of developmentalbiology, chairs the Bio-X Leadership Council (more about our relationship with Bio-X inthe FAQs below). Russ Altman, professor of genetics, and Scott Delp lead theBiocomputation group in Bio-X.

New FacultyOur first real clue that the department was heading in a truly interesting direction camewhen we received over 300 applications for our initial faculty search last year. Weultimately extended offers to three extraordinary young investigators—and we are happy toreport that all three joined our faculty.

Steve Quake, the most “senior” of the new faculty at age 36, returned to Stanford, where hereceived his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and physics. Steve has had a remarkablecareer so far, becoming a full professor at Caltech at 34 and earning recognition as a worldauthority in the emerging area of large-scale integration of biological processes (thisincludes lab-on-a-chip technologies). On the academic side, he has had two extraordinaryhonors in the short time he has been at Stanford: He was named a Howard Hughes MedicalInvestigator and was selected to receive the first NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (NDPA),along with eight other visionary bioscientists in the country. Unlike traditional NIH grants,the NDPA supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneeringapproaches to major contemporary challenges in biomedical research.

Jennifer Cochran joined us as a new assistant professor. Jennifer completed her doctoral andpostdoctoral training at MIT, where she focused on the engineering of cell receptors andgrowth factors using a variety of techniques, including yeast surface display. She alreadyhas established key collaborations with existing Stanford faculty and will have a major rolein the development and teaching of the new curriculum. Her work with protein engineeringhas the potential to lead to a wide variety of therapeutic applications, including woundhealing, neural cell regeneration, and growth of new blood vessels.

Karl Deisseroth received both his MD and PhD (in Neurosciences) from Stanford. Herecently finished his residency in psychiatry and will continue his clinical activities as hebuilds his research program. Parenthetically, we believe this makes us the only BioEdepartment in the country with a full-time psychiatrist—which surely must be an importantadvantage! Karl’s research focuses on developing new molecular and cellular approaches todetecting and treating neurological disorders. He has had noteworthy success in using stem

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cell approaches to improve the memory-based performance of rats. Karl was one of threeacademic physicians in the United States to receive the prestigious Charles E. CulpeperScholarship in Medical Science.

More Good News—Our Grad StudentsEven at this early stage of the department, we often are asked what we look to as keymeasures of success. National rankings are one factor, of course, but we are too young andtoo small to pay much attention to these rankings for a few years.

One measure currently very important to us is our success in recruiting graduate students.The top grad student prospects receive multiple offers from the best programs in thecountry—places like Johns Hopkins, Caltech, MIT, Berkeley, Duke, and UCSD. So it waswith some anxiety that we made offers last year to our top 20 choices for PhD training.Fourteen candidates chose Stanford, a remarkable 70 percent acceptance rate that is off thecharts for most graduate programs.

A Little Help from our FriendsWith good news on all fronts, we are extremely excited and confident about the future of theBioE department. The one area of concern is our finances: Despite substantial “just-in-time”financial backing from the university and the schools of Engineering and Medicine, thedepartment’s funding needs exceed the funds allocated to it. Finding fellowship endowmentsand start-up funds for the department presents us with great opportunity—and challenge.

We consider ourselves fortunate to have friends who believe in our mission. Many earlysupporters of the department stepped forward to help us through unrestricted gifts, researchsupport, and expendable and endowed fellowships. All gifts have had a discernible impacton our department.

In this particular issue of the newsletter, we would like to highlight and acknowledge withthanks the donors who have given endowed fellowships.

As of this writing, fellowships have been pledged by:

Gordon B. Crary, Jr (AB ’43 Engineering)Mr. Crary has established a generous trust for BioE fellowships.

Bruce E. (MS EE ’49, ENG EE ’51) and Doris A. NelsonThe Nelsons have established a trust for BioE fellowships. They also provided generoussupport for research in tissue engineering.

Ric Weiland (BS EE ’76)Ric is the sponsor of the Martha Meier Weiland Chair in honor of his mother. Paul Yockcurrently holds this chair. Ric also has generously contributed additional funds in support ofan endowed fellowship for BioE.

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Ken Yun (PhD EE ’94)Ken made the first pledge to the department in support of two fellowships by creating theYun Family Fellowship Fund.

An anonymous donor familyThese endowed fellowships will allow us to make competitive offers to the best candidatesin the country. This year, our goal is to add an additional five fellowships to cover nextyear’s recruiting class.

Another type of support, the unrestricted departmental gift, is equally important to us. Thesegifts provide flexibility in covering the unpredictable expenses we encounter as a start-updepartment and allow us to support the highest priorities of the department.

Looking to the Future—A New Bioengineering BuildingA new bioengineering building is on the university’s building plan for the EngineeringQuad, scheduled for completion in six to eight years. We are particularly eager to see thebioengineering building finished sooner rather than later, because we have only four spacesremaining for new faculty members in the Clark Center. Additionally, we do not want ournascent recruiting efforts to be hindered by an inability to offer quality space. We areworking hard to find funding to complete the building in a timely manner.

Some FAQsA few questions tend to come up often in our discussions about this unusual department:

1. How does the BioE department relate to the Bio-X Program?

Bio-X is a university-wide program that spans the seven schools. Bio-X is organized aroundresearch themes. Many are directly relevant to bioengineering (e.g., biocomputation,biodesign, imaging, and regenerative medicine). The Bio-X program also sponsors researchgrants, fellowships, and seminars, all of which encourage interdisciplinary interactionamong the schools.

The Department of Bioengineering is one of the 46 departments under the Bio-X umbrella.Like these other departments, BioE appoints faculty and grants degrees, which Bio-X doesnot do. The relationship between the BioE department and Bio-X is particularly close; boththe BioE department and the hub of Bio-X are physically located in the Clark Center.

From the standpoint of the BioE department, Bio-X is an extraordinarily important resource.Most successful bioengineering departments around the country are associated with abroader institute structure that links bioengineering activities throughout the engineering andmedical departments. Bio-X serves this bridging function at Stanford.

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2. How big will the BioE department be?

We have been allocated 24 full faculty positions. However, we expect our size to be on theorder of 30 to 35 faculty, since a number of them will be joint appointments (i.e., half inBioE and half in another department). This number is comparable to some of the largerengineering departments. It will take at least 10 years to reach this point.

3. When will the first class graduate?

Five master’s students completed their work last year and became our first graduates in June2005. We expect the first of our PhD students to finish their degrees in 2009.

4. When will there be an undergraduate degree in bioengineering?

The answer to this question follows the question about faculty size; we expect that once theundergraduate program is established, it will become large very quickly. It is essential thatwe hire sufficient faculty to teach new courses and provide excellent advising to students.

Of course, laboratory space will be required with some classes—we expect the newbioengineering building to provide that space. Therefore, our tentative date for opening theundergraduate program is fall 2010. In the meantime, undergraduate students with aninterest in bioengineering can pursue the biomechanical engineering degree or theinterdepartmental major in biomedical computation.

5. How can we support the department?

We are establishing a “Friends of Bioengineering” group to share information about thedepartment. We are happy to field specific questions about the department, to give tours, orto provide further information to anyone who is interested in learning more. The prospect ofbuilding something truly unique with this department excites us, and we understand that alarge part of our success depends on having a meaningful and engaged community ofsupporters.

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The first crop of BioEgraduates: (l to r) Colin Tan,Surag Mantri, Justin Kao,Student Services ManagerOlgalydia Urbano-Winegar, Ih-Ming Chan, James Schroeder.

Staying ConnectedWe encourage you to keep abreast of the activities in the department by visiting our Website at bioengineering.stanford.edu and by remaining an active member of our communityby keeping us apprised of your activities and whereabouts. (Alums can log on tosoe.stanford.edu/alumni/update.html to update contact information.) Or, if it is moreconvenient, you can fill out the enclosed news update form. We look forward to hearingfrom you.

Thank You!Again, our heartfelt thanks to all of you who have made the formation of the BioEdepartment possible! Our goal is to become one of the very best departments in thecountry—with proper planning and execution, the single best. We appreciate your supportand guidance in helping move us steadily toward this goal.

With best regards,

Scott Delp Paul YockChair, Department of Bioengineering Martha Meier Weiland Professor in

the School of MedicineCo-Chair, Department of Bioengineering

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