
Civil may not be the Oregonian word of choice when describing the intensely competitive rivalry between the University of Oregon and Oregon State University on the gridiron. But the state’s largest research institutions are redefining the rivalry between the Beavers and the Ducks off the field.
UO, OSU and Oregon Health & Science University are combining strengths to enhance our statewide reputation and impact in the applied sciences by leveraging state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure on all three campuses with the legacy of engineering at OSU; the excellence in science, communications and business at the UO; and the preeminent basic science and clinical research programs at OHSU.
Students, researchers and practitioners from all three state institutions gathered in Corvallis for the inaugural Oregon Bioengineering Symposium last month. The meeting covered multiple areas of bioengineering and biomedical engineering, with an emphasis on technologies for precision health. The goal of the meeting was to promote collaboration and exchange of ideas in Oregon and the surrounding region.
"The success of the symposium reflected on the integration of research and training provided by this collaborative initiative in bioengineering in Oregon,” said Owen McCarty, Ph.D., chair of biomedical engineering in the OHSU School of Medicine. “The programs at the three institutions will complement each other in their individual strengths in medical research, engineering education and innovation and entrepreneurship."
Earlier this fall, representatives from UO, OSU and OHSU converged at the 2019 Biomedical Engineering Society’s Annual Meeting in Philadelphia to centralize recruiting efforts to promote this collaboration and to attract the next generation of scientists to the state of Oregon.
The graduate programs in biomedical engineering at OHSU, and bioengineering at OSU are collaborating with the UO’s Knight Campus to provide both breadth and depth in a range of topics, including human (patho) physiology through training in measurement and data science and computational biology approaches to address unmet clinical needs.
The curricula are tailored for each student based upon their background, research direction and career goals and leverages the strengths at the three campuses, while providing an innovative platform for the next generation of citizen scientists to make positive societal impact.