Bioengineering research at Princeton is an interdisciplinary endeavor. The Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute will include a team of core faculty members and will also convene affiliated faculty from across campus. The current Princeton Bioengineering Initiative, which launched in 2020, has involved faculty from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the departments of molecular biology, physics, chemistry, and ecology and evolutionary biology.
The Bioengineering Initiative has been led by Cliff Brangwynne, the June K. Wu ’92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research has changed how scientists understand cellular organization by linking biology with materials science and engineering, leading to foundational insights about cell functions and suggesting new ways to treat diseases such as cancers, ALS and Alzheimer’s. He has earned many accolades for his work, including being named a MacArthur Fellow, a Sloan Fellow and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator.
“Gil and Martha recognize that Princeton must play a leading role in bioengineering, one of the most important fields for humanity this century,” Brangwynne said. “Their fantastic gift will have a major impact on Princeton students and faculty for generations to come.”
The Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute will be housed in the new environmental sciences and engineering neighborhood, scheduled to be completed in 2025, and will expand research already underway in the Bioengineering Initiative. The Institute’s main areas of focus will be cellular engineering, biomedical instruments and devices, and computational bioengineering. An important part of its work will be to bolster innovation and entrepreneurship as well as ties to the region’s biotech and pharmaceutical industries.
The married couple’s support of the University’s strategic initiative in bioengineering includes an earlier gift: The Gilbert S. Omenn ’61, M.D, Ph.D. and Martha A. Darling *70 Fund for Grand Challenges was announced in September 2021, supporting initiatives in biology and engineering.
“Supporting Cliff Brangwynne and other Princeton researchers with the Grand Challenges fund in bioengineering really captured our imagination,” said Omenn. “The more that is learned in this field, the more we realize we have yet to understand, a common experience. This is an exciting area, where new technologies, basic biology, and chemistry, physics, mathematics and computational sciences all need to be brought together. This emerging institute will do exactly that.”
The Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute will promote collaboration across disciplines, bringing together scholars and researchers who are exploring experimental and computational methods as well as the ethical and public policy implications of new ideas and technologies.
“Pairing biology and engineering together is very intriguing to us, especially because of Gil’s professional contributions in the fields of computational medicine and bioinformatics,” Darling said. “In addition, Princeton is uniquely positioned to highlight in-depth exploration of the ethical and policy implications of this rapidly evolving field. Princeton faculty are very aware of the larger societal context that is involved in some of these technological breakthroughs.”
“The Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute will accelerate Princeton’s leadership at the forefront of this exciting engineering frontier, with unlimited potential for positive impact on health, medicine and quality of life,” said Andrea Goldsmith, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “The institute will bring together the most innovative faculty and students in the field and provide them with the foundation needed to enable transformative research and teaching. With its world-class faculty across relevant areas and its robust culture of interdisciplinary collaboration, Princeton is now well-poised to shape the trajectory of bioengineering long into the future.”
For more:
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/07/18/major-gift-gilbert-omenn-61-and-martha-darling-70-names-bioengineering-institute