Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

As you read this message today, an exciting group of engineers, physicians, clinicians, and computer and material scientists, along with many physical and life science academia and industry members are holding our inaugural BioInnovation and Medical Engineering symposium here on our campus. The event is organized by our newly established Kummer Institute Center with the same name that is “committed to transforming human health through scientific discovery, engineering innovation and translational research.” The center brings together “faculty, students and partners from across disciplines to address complex challenges at the intersection of biology, engineering and medicine.”

Today’s presentations, at the intersection of engineering and physical sciences and medicine and life sciences, will focus on:

• Biomedical engineering and biomaterials
• Drug delivery systems and therapeutics
• Biosensors and medical instrumentation
• Neurobiology and neural engineering
• Biomanufacturing and bioprocessing
• Biological and medical informatics.

This gathering of the minds on a topic of increasing importance is timely as we, the medical and engineering world, recognizes that despite huge advances in medicine and its delivery, the entire domain of health care is, well, under engineered! In fact, when I was at Johns Hopkins University, I highlighted in an article that in Hopkins’ modern and most advanced hospitals, the ICUs contained lifesaving equipment that did not “talk” to one another! They were not integrated. Integration of health care equipment, operational facilities and delivery systems is just one example of engineered solutions that engineers, working closely with clinicians, can provide.

Further, imagine what the next generation of artificial hearts, wearable kidneys and engineered, integrated and implemented eyes for the blind can provide for millions of patients across the world. Imagine what artificial intelligence can do to enable impossible-to-imagine artificial limbs. Imagine diagnostic systems that will pinpoint human illnesses and agent-based models that predict pandemics accurately enough to mobilize preventive measures well in advance of the spread. Imagine a world with no pandemics at all! All courtesy of an AI-enabled science and engineering systems approach to preventive health care.

Fortunately, engineers are increasingly attracted to medicine, biological sciences and research. In fact, our entering student applicants interested in biological sciences and bioengineering is at an all-time high. Specifically, our newly established programs in biomedical engineering and our new Ph.D. programs in bioengineering and biological sciences are in highest demand. It is no surprise then that the highest rate of passage for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) are engineering students and physical science majors.

It is also no surprise then that our inaugural BioInnovation and Medical Engineering Symposium has attracted great interest and is poised to ignite joint, multidisciplinary, solution-inspired projects to provide innovative biotechnology solutions for some of the most critical challenges of human health. Fittingly, our planned state-of-the-art Bioplex research and educational complex will further attract talented faculty, scientists and students who will work collaboratively to address the health care challenges of our time.

With our BioInnovation and Medical Engineering Symposium today, our faculty and students have reached another defining moment to channel our zest for technological innovation by engaging engineering minds in addressing human health care.

Warmly,

-Mo.

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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu