Whitaker Uses Endowment to Advance Healing

Professor Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou developed an experimental operation at Rutgers University that uses magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electrodes placed in the brain to reduce Parkinson's disease symptoms. Following surgery, patients walk and move without the usual unsteadiness that accompanies the disease. "The work is the most rewarding science I have done in my entire career," Micheli-Tzanakou says. The researcher also created the first computer-to-brain interface by combining computational intelligence with online brain activity recordings to analyze brain responses from humans and animals. To encourage scientists like Micheli-Tzanakou to advance healing technologies, the Whitaker Foundation, created in 1975, has focused its giving on biomedical engineering. Inspired by Uncas A. Whitaker, an engineer and attorney who believed the marriage of medicine and engineering would bring advances in healing, the foundation has boosted its spending from $14 million to $60 to $70 million annually for a total of $575 million since 1992. Whitaker officials have staked the foundation's endowment to create jobs, advance teaching and research: they plan to close it in 2006 after spending nearly $1 billion on biomedical engineering. Paying Dividends This exhaustive funding effort appears to have paid off. The number of US university programs has more than doubled to 90 in the past decade. Columbia University and Duke University, for example, recently transferred these programs into separate departments. Many other schools, such as Florida State University, University of Oklahoma, and University of California, Irvine, have recently formed new biomedical engineering divisions or departments. Elsewhere, research in the field that originally helped pioneer open-heart surgery now includes bioengineered skin, timed-release drug capsules, artificial articulated joints, and artificial organs. At the University of Michigan, researchers recently succeeded in growing a network of blood vessels in live animals using implants that deliver key growth enzymes sequentially. At North Carolina State University, researchers are engineering intracellular spatial sensing to enhance cell recruitment to sites of injury and improve wound healing. "Students are gravitating to the field because it is linked to exciting things happening like the human genome and tissue engineering," says Martin Yarmush, chair of the biomedical engineering department at Rutgers. "It combines the best of engineering and the life sciences. If you look around in hospitals today, you're most struck by the products of biomedical engineering—the pumps, the devices, [and] the imaging machines. You'll see even more of that in the future." Yarmush expects his department to benefit from Whitaker's benevolence after a visit by foundation officials in March. With core faculty doubled in three years, the university's new undergraduate program already boasts an enrollment of more than 150 students. The department also plans to build a $24 million, 45,000-square-foot, glass facade building with modern labs, classrooms, and research centers. Yarmush hopes to attract $9 million from the Whitaker Foundation to help fund the building's construction. The foundation has already funded new buildings at Washington University in St. Louis, University of California, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and elsewhere. The Future without Whitaker Before the Whitaker launched its grant program, researchers at institutions like Rutgers often had trouble acquiring funding because the work didn't fit into traditional definitions of medicine, science, or engineering. Today, some worry that biomedical engineering departments will struggle after the foundation closes in 2006. But Peter G. Katona, Whitaker Foundation's president and CEO, predicts they will continue to thrive. "The field is gaining visibility and attracting excellent scientists," he says. "Funding from other sources is increasing. And biomedical engineering is clearly important to medicine and biological research." Whitaker's closing will be cushioned by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, a central source of funding and organization created in 2000.1 The Sloan Foundation, Pew Charitable Trust, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and W.M. Keck Foundation also have stepped up biomedical research funding. Additionally, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies increasingly look to biomedical engineers as future leaders in advancing medicine and science. These scientists are flooding the market with new technologies. "There's a growing backlog of applications in the biomedical area because the patent office can't keep up with the increasing number coming in," says Andy Gibbs, CEO of the Yuba City, Calif.-based PatentCafe.com. The flurry of activity generates thousands of new positions for bioengineers. A December 2001 US Department of Labor report projects that biomedical engineering jobs will increase by 31.4% through 2010, double the estimated overall job growth rate of 15.2%. The positions are top quality, too. A 2001 survey by The Scientist and Abbott, Langer & Associates ranks bioengineering salaries and cash compensation among the highest in the life sciences.2 Median compensation, ranging from $75,000 to $77,000, equals more than a third more than the $55,000 median for all of the life sciences, according to the survey. Despite the growth in salaries and opportunities, accomplishments by the Whitaker Foundation, and by bioengineers like Micheli-Tzanakou, much of what the market demands of the field today remains unaccomplished, cautions Rutgers' Yarmush. "We are making good progress with replacements for bone, skin, and cartilage, but we still have a long way to go with functional organs like livers, kidneys, and hearts," says Yarmush, a tissue and metabolic engineer. "It's been 20 years of hard work. It may take another 20 to reach the next level." Jennifer Fisher Wilson (jfwilson@snip.net) is a contributing editor. References 1. S. Bunk, "Bioengineering and imaging merge at NIH," The Scientist, 15[18]:1, Sept. 17, 2001. 2. P. Park, "The long road to riches in the life sciences," The Scientist, 15[18]:30, Sep. 17, 2001.

Whitaker Uses Endowment to Advance Healing

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