Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday! 

I live a stone’s throw from the bulldozers that began tearing the earth this week to build our Bioplex, and the screaming of their engines and tracks has been music to my ears when they start way before dawn every day. More exciting yet is our campus’s collective effort to solidify the pillars of our AI-enabled, industry-focused, application-driven and solution-inspired bio and biotechnology research and education programs. So, the question is, in the age of AI when so much more can be done at the speed of digital disruption and infinite memory, how do universities pivot and adopt sustaining transformational research and education of biosciences and biotechnology?

To answer the question here at S&T, our Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, Dr. Kamal Khayat, is calling for a series of seminars in a two-tier approach of Data and Alternativespresentations, followed by Discussions and Decisions. For the Data and Alternatives series, our key faculty members and guest speakers from industry, academia, national labs and other centers of relevant knowledge will be invited to present the prevailing data and alternatives for expansion of our biosciences, biotechnology, bio-innovation and medical engineering. These conversations will include cross-disciplinary concepts at the intersection of engineering, physical sciences, life sciences and medicine. The Data and Alternatives series of presentations will be followed by the Discussions and Decisions phase, where the conversations will focus on the challenges and opportunities of health care in the age of AI, and the promise of digital transformation.

Will the drug manufacturing processes and technologies be a major element of our future focus within our Bioplex, just like advanced aerospace manufacturing is the main focus of our Protoplex? If so, how do we identify and work with our industry partners in that field just as we have with our manufacturing partners in the Protoplex? Interestingly, before our Protoplex opens its doors this coming April, many national and international manufacturing companies have already started active engagement in the facility. In fact, Boeing, Caterpillar and Lockheed Martin, to name a few, will have their representative engineers residing in Rolla and working at the Protoplex to coordinate broader engagement in research and education with S&T. Similarly, for Bioplex and pharmaceutical manufacturing, we will engage with top pharma companies like Merck, Roche, Novo Nordisk and others, many of which have existing research collaborations with S&T. 

In addition to collaboration in drug manufacturing process research, our faculty will provide drug production support and innovation by integrating digital twins of the processes into various stages of production. AI-driven digital twins replicate the actual manufacturing processes and thereby enable optimization, parametric studies, personalized medicine and faster clinical trials. This is all at the researchers’ fingertips and without using physical ingredients except for calibration purposes. The gain? Well-developed, calibrated simulations along with production control strategies that enable automation, improve productivity, and support process optimization and continuous improvement. 

In the end, and long before our Bioplex building is completed, we will establish a sense of direction for our medical engineering and bio-innovation efforts, identify research and educational pillars for our bio space, and highlight the challenges that we will face so that we can proactively mitigate them.

To all our students, faculty, colleagues and friends, I say we need your thoughts and ideas, and ask that you participate in our open forum discussions and engage in our exciting bio journey. We would like to hear from you and look forward to seeing you at our Data and Alternatives meetings that will be announced on our Center for BioInnovation and Medical Engineering website, and on our Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation site.

As we break new ground for the Bioplex, the home of our new, bold bio research and education dimension, and as we set our sights on our bigger vision, let’s look up and look forward to uplifting our horizon as generations of Miners have done before us. 

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