It is my pleasure to welcome you to Bioengineering at UCSD. This is an exciting time for the rapidly growing interdisciplinary field of bioengineering, and UCSD offers unique opportunities for discovery and learning in bioengineering. Bioengineering at UCSD was established in 1966, shortly after the founding of the campus, with its home in the School of Engineering and a close association with the School of Medicine. UCSD Bioengineering has had active undergraduate and graduate education programs from its inception and has a National Institutes of Health training grant for pre-doctoral and post-doctoral trainees since 1975. We received a Whitaker Foundation Development Award in 1993, and in 1994 we became the first Department of bioengineering in the University of California System. This has led the way for the formation of five more bioengineering departments among the nine UC campuses.

     The Bioengineering Department at UCSD is housed today in Powell-Focht Bioengineering Hall, which opened in November 2002. This unique facility was funded privately by a Leadership Award from the Whitaker Foundation in 1998 and gifts from the Powell Foundation, the von Liebig Foundation, and by individual gifts from many friends. It has 65,000 assignable square feet with state-of-the-art research labs and core facilities in bioinstrumentation, nanotechnology, information technology, biofabrication technology, and in vivo technologies. The building houses the Y.-C. Fung Auditorium, the B. W. Zweifach Library, the W. J. von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement, a dedicated undergraduate teaching laboratory, and a multimedia-lab among other facilities.

     At present, Our Department has 19 core faculty, 10 affiliated faculty, 28 adjunct professors and research scientists, 30 postdoctoral fellows, and many collaborating scientists from other departments that participate in instructional and research activities. The Bioengineering (BENG) undergraduate education includes majors in Bioengineering, Bioengineering:Pre-medical, Bioengineering:Biotechnology, and Bioengineering:Bioinformatics. The undergraduate student body totals about 900. At the graduate level, there are about 50 students working toward Master of Science (MS) and Master of Engineering (MEng) degrees and over 80 students pursuing PhD and MD/PhD degrees. Our Department collaborates with colleagues in Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Biomedical Sciences in a new interdisciplinary PhD program in bioinformatics, which is administered in the Department of Bioengineering. UCSD graduates in Bioengineering are currently employed in a wide variety of positions in academia, industry, clinical medicine, and government at local and national levels, with many of them assuming important leadership positions

     In addition to its close affiliation with the School of Medicine, including many joint appointments, research programs, and s tudent advisorships, the Bioengineering department also maintains strong ties and collaboration with many other departments on campus, as well as the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Cancer Center, the Shiley Eye Center and neighboring institutions such as the Salk Institute, the Burnham Institute, and The Scripps Research Institute. The Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering is a campus-wide organized research unit, with over 100 members, that facilitates bioengineering research collaboration across biology, medicine and engineering. An Industrial Affiliates Program provides close interaction with representatives of the vibrant bioengineering-related industry in San Diego, which has one of the most concentrated, innovative, and rapidly growing biotechnology communities in the world. UCSD is also headquarters to the UC system-wide Bioengineering Institute of California.

     UCSD has a wide range of programs and activities to enrich educational experiences. The Industrial Internship Training Program, established by a grant from the Whitaker Foundation, provides an opportunity for juniors, seniors and MEng students to experience working in a local bioengineering company to complement their academic training. There is an active local chapter of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), a national organization for bioengineering undergraduate students. The Bioengineering Graduate Student Group (BEGS) has been active in all aspects of graduate education and activities, including the organization of the annual Bioengineering Research Symposium (now in its 20th year), the annual Breakfast with Industry, and the recruitment of new graduate students. As part of their graduate training experience, students have an opportunity to serve as Graduate Student Instructors in bioengineering courses, and there are programs on campus to facilitate TA training. There are also NIH training grants in Bioengineering and in Bioinformatics that provide support for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows.

     UCSD and its Bioengineering Department are presently in a major growth phase, driven by the recent growth of the population of the State of California. The UCSD campus currently has 25,278 students, including graduate and medical students and it will grow 35,000 students in the next five years. Accordingly, faculty and buildings will also grow. Bioengineering is recruiting actively to reach its target of 25 full-time core faculty members in the next five years.  

     UCSD Bioengineering has enjoyed a top place in the national rankings of bioengineering programs over the years. This is attributable to many factors, including outstanding research programs at the cutting edge of bioengineering (as evidenced by the $12M federal funding in 2004), the international reputation of its senior faculty (Professors Fung and Chien, for example, are members of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine, and Dr. Fung received the National Medal of Science in 2001), the unusual strengths of its junior faculty (Professor Ideker, for example, recently received a highly competitive Packard Foundation Award), the superb quality of the students and their enthusiasm, the dedication of the staff, and the rich, interdisciplinary environment at UCSD. On behalf of the Department, I extend our warmest welcome to you from the Bioengineering Department at UCSD!

Sincerely, Andrew McCulloch