PASADENA, Calif.- Seeing a burgeoning new research field at the interface of biology and engineering, the Benjamin M. Rosen Family Foundation of New York has donated $18 million to the California Institute of Technology to establish the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center.
"Ben and Donna Rosen are recognizing how critical bioengineering is to the future of Caltech, science, and society, and they also appreciate the power an endowment can have in sustaining such an initiative," said Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau. "The Institute is fortunate to have them as friends."
The Rosen Center will advance both basic scientific exploration and development of engineering analysis and synthetic approaches. Innovations in these areas are resulting in rugged and inexpensive diagnostic devices, in new insights into the functioning of the heart, and in the engineering of molecular devices capable of recognizing and responding to disease processes in individual cells.
Bioengineering developed at Caltech in recognition of the fact that biology is becoming more accessible to approaches that are commonly used in engineering, including mathematical modeling, systems theory, computation, and abstraction-based synthesis. At each level of organization, from the molecule to the cell to the organ, the accelerating pace of discovery in the biological sciences reveals new design principles that are of fundamental importance in understanding living organisms, and that will have important practical applications in future synthetic biological and biomedical systems and devices.
"Bioengineering arose at Caltech from the grassroots efforts of a handful of committed faculty coming together to establish a graduate option with great enthusiasm," said Scott Fraser, the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and professor of bioengineering, who will lead the new center. "This gift will endow the program allowing it to foster the most innovative collaborative research. Such funding fuels innovation by offering support to venturesome efforts far earlier than would be possible through conventional granting agencies."
"There are a few times in history when diverse sciences, technologies and researchers fortuitously come together at the same time and at the same place to make possible great achievements for mankind," said Rosen. "This is one of those times, and Caltech is one of those places. We're honored to be able to play a small part in helping start this exciting new Caltech Bioengineering Initiative."
According to Ed Stolper, Caltech's provost, "Our current challenge is to provide an intellectual and programmatic focus for our growing teaching and research programs in bioengineering, spanning synthetic, systems, and computational biology; biomechanics and bio-inspired design; and development of novel biotechnologies. The Rosen Center will provide such a focus and critical support for these activities, which span many of the Institute's existing programs."
"Caltech's Bioengineering Center will foster the foundational work that will blossom into the next generation of tissue regeneration and diagnostic instrumentation," said Fraser. "The results of these innovations will make tools once considered too futuristic for anything but science fiction films into practical devices that can be carried in a physician's rear pocket."
Ben Rosen was founding chairman of Compaq Computer Corp. and a founding partner of Sevin Rosen Funds, a venture capital firm that has provided initial financing for more than 100 technology companies. Previously, he was vice president and senior electronics analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co., and before that he was an electronics engineer at Raytheon and Sperry Gyroscope. In 1992, Computerworld chose Rosen as one of 25 people in the computer industry "who changed the world." Rosen joined Caltech's board of trustees in 1986 and became chairman in 2001. He is also a member of the board of overseers and managers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a member of the board of overseers of Columbia Business School, and a director of the New York Philharmonic. Rosen earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Caltech in 1954. He also earned a master's in electrical engineering from Stanford and an MBA from Columbia University.
Donna Rosen was the former owner/director of Galerie Simonne Stern in New Orleans for 23 years until she moved to New York in 2002. She pioneered the New Orleans Warehouse District as the "Art District of New Orleans." She is a national trustee of the New Orleans Museum of Art; vice chairman of the board of American Friends of the British Museum; board member of The Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Hospital; and trustee of Second Stage Theater.
Written by Jill Perry