UCI Aims to Back Biomed With Research, Workers
Kaiser Gets New OC Boss; Tensor Developing Software for Matsushita Device
HEALTHCARE
by Vita Reed
Folks at the University of California, Irvine’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering, with help from Orange County’s medical device industry, have spent a good part of the past few years building the school’s biomedical engineering program.
Their work paid off earlier this month, when UCI officials approved granting the biomedical engineering program department status.
Getting a biomedical engineering department has been touted as a way to build on OC’s status as a hub for medical devices.
“I visualize this department playing a key role in the economy of Orange County and the state in biotechnology and biomedical devices,” said Nicolaos Alexopoulos, the engineering school’s dean, in an interview last year. “If you have a very powerful department, you really enhance the economy of the local region. Your graduates will not only be hired by existing companies, but they will also create new companies, therefore (improving) employment in the region.”
The new biomedical engineering department is expected to enroll around 50 new undergraduate students and 15 new graduate students this fall, said Dr. Steven George, the department’s chair.
George said he expects to hire two faculty members in the coming months and four more in the next four years. The department now has 39 faculty members.
Input from OC’s device industry has taken various forms, ranging from program development to fundraising.
An advisory board made up of officials from large, midsize and small device makers is one contribution to the process.
Areas of study include bio-optics, nanoscale systems, computational technologies and tissue engineering.
“The department structure allows the faculty to focus their research and teaching efforts (toward) our goal of training the highest quality biomedical engineers for both the local biomedical device industry and academia,” George said.
The new department’s roots came in 1998, when UCI’s Center for Biomedical Engineering was started.
Milestones included a $3 million grant in 1999 from the Whitaker Foundation of Arlington, Va., and last year’s $1.5 million gift from William Link, a managing director at Versant Ventures’ Newport Beach office, for an endowed chair in biomedical engineering.
Kaiser’s New OC Boss
Julie Miller-Phipps, a 25-year veteran of Oakland-based Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc., is the new senior vice president and Orange County service area manager for the health maintenance organization, OC’s largest by enrollment.
Miller-Phipps takes over for Janice Head, who had been Kaiser’s OC leader since 1998 and now is senior vice president and service area manager for Kaiser’s Tri-Central service area.
Most recently, Miller-Phipps served as director of hospital operations at Kaiser’s Baldwin Park Medical Center, which opened in 1998.
She’s also been continuing care leader for the Inland Empire service area and assistant hospital administrator at the Riverside Medical Center.
She has a bachelor’s in sociology from California State University, Fullerton, and a master’s in healthcare administration from the University of La Verne.
Kaiser counts some 335,200 OC members. Local operations include an Anaheim hospital and several standalone medical centers.
Startup Teams with Matsushita
Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. signed a five-year pact with Tensor Biosciences, Irvine, to develop software for Matsushita’s MED64 system, which uses a computer chip probe to stimulate and record brain electrical activity.
The goal: to help researchers come up with better drugs for psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders.
Drug testing assays developed by Tensor under the deal are set to be patented by Matsushita and licensed back to Tensor for use in discovering new drugs.
In a release, Jim Wilson, Tensor’s chief executive, said developing drug discovery technology based on neuronal networks was “the best way to significantly improve the rate of drug discovery for brain diseases.”
Privately held Tensor started in 2000. The company uses specialists in computer science and multi-electrode neurophysiology to develop its drug discovery technology.
It holds various patents on methods to test drugs on slices of living brain tissue.
Watson Expands Test Nationally
Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc., Corona, unveiled its new PapSure cervical cancer-screening tool on a national basis. PapSure combines results of a traditional Pap smear and speculoscopy, or a visual examination of the cervix.
PapSure uses Speculite, a disposable, chemiluminescent light for illuminating a patient. Illumination helps doctors visually identify cervical abnormalities or lesions that are potentially cancerous.
According to Watson, clinical studies have shown that PapSure more than doubles testing sensitivity to 92%, compared to 41% for a Pap smear alone. Watson also pointed out that the new test reduces false negative results.
Bits and Pieces:
James McGaugh, director of the University of California, Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, is set to discuss “The Magic of Memory: Peeking Behind the Brain’s Curtain” Wednesday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, (949) 824-4275.
