A Change in Culture

The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation has awarded the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia one of nine $4.5M Translational Research Partnership Awards in Biomedical Engineering. The task facing the department is twofold: support research projects that are explicitly translational in nature, and in the process, test and validate models of translational research that can be widely adopted

“The idea is to begin to conduct research from the start with the recognition of its downstream clinical impact,” says Tom Skalak, Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering. “This requires a change in culture as well as the development of systems to support this culture.”

The department has kicked off this experiment by selecting four projects for funding and appointing David Chen, a Darden MBA with hands-on experience with a successful biotechnology company, as project director. Selection for the 2007-2008 funding cycle begins February 2007.

Wallace H. Coulter Foundation
U.Va. Biomedical Engineering