L-R: Dermot Kelleher, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and James Olson, Interim Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science.
Dermot Kelleher, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and James Olson, the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science, co-authored an editorial about the new UBC School of Biomedical Engineering that was published in the Vancouver Sun Aug. 19.
The piece explains the reasons for the creation of the school, which was officially established July 1 as a joint entity of both faculties.
The school will be the new home of UBC’s current graduate biomedical engineering programs, which will welcome its seventh cohort this fall. An initial complement of faculty members and staff will support the school, which will also house the Biomedical Research Centre. Its founding director is Peter Zandstra, who is joining UBC from the University of Toronto.
Describing the collaboration between researchers from both faculties that led to the invention of the Phone Oximeter, the deans go on to describe how the school will “break down antiquated academic boundaries… applying an engineering mindset to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment… extending engineering into realms that most people have a hard time grasping: the splicing of genes, the rearrangement of proteins, and the cultivation of stem cells, which can be coaxed into repairing or even replacing damaged tissues or organs.”
“This is a squishier world than many engineers are used to,” Dr. Kelleher and Dr. Olson write. “But it’s governed by the same physical principles that all engineering students must master. And it’s just as yielding to their quantitative approach and creative design skills, which offer new solutions to society’s major health challenges, including cancer, neurological disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”
They go on to say that “UBC is the first university in Western Canada to recognize the importance of this burgeoning field with a school of its own. And we are doing it at a propitious time, as British Columbia diversifies its resource-based economy by cultivating a vibrant tech sector, and as the province joins the University of Washington in creating the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative, emulating the success of such regional tech hubs as Silicon Valley, North Carolina’s Research Triangle, and Boston’s Route 128 Corridor.”