Attendees: A. Aguinaldo, W. Baxter, S. Chien, R. Cosan, B. Craig, D. Cuplin, G. Schmid-Schonbein, D. Gough, T. Matusov, M. Mazzoni, I. Lian, A. Paau, J. Penhune, A. Penn, L. Phillips, I. Tyus

Approval of Minutes from 10/05/00 meeting: Approved as submitted.

Report on Recent Activities
Dr. Gough spoke about the Conference on Glucose Monitoring and Control held February 15-17, 2001 at the Radisson Hotel La Jolla. The conference was sponsored in part by the newly approved Project on Glucose Monitoring and Control established as part of the Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering. The conference was a great success. Over a hundred people from all areas of the glucose monitoring research including academic, industrial, and government, participated in the conference. The department and the Institute are planning to make this an annual event.
Dr. Chien gave an update on the work that has been done on the Powell-Focht Building so far. The current image of the construction area can be found on the Bioengineering Department Web site at http://www-bioeng.ucsd.edu/.
Dr. Chien reminded the participants of the Engineering Research Review that will be held on Friday, February 23 and will include Executive Forum, Graduate Research Posters, Faculty State-of-the-Filed Talks, and Industry Technical Exhibits. The Review sessions will be held in the Price Center
Dr. Chien also spoke about the Multi-campus Organized Research Unit (MRU) project that is being now prepared for submission. Representatives from the Bioengineering programs in eight campuses in the University of California have been planning to form a System-wide Multi-campus Organized Research Unit (MRU) in Bioengineering. This MRU will coordinate research and training activities related to bioengineering throughout the UC system. If such an MRU is approved by the UC Office of President, it will provide funds to the participating campuses for intercampus communications, student fellowships in areas related to bioengineering, holding of joint conferences and symposia, intramural seed funding for research projects, joint applications for extramural grants, and other activities. Each campus will have its operating units, and UCSD will be the headquarters. The draft proposal has been sent to participants in different campuses for review and the proposal will be submitted to the UCSD Vice Chancellor for Research during the following week.

The Graduate Student Symposium:
Alexander Penn reported on the annual Graduate Student Symposium, which will be held on March 10, 2001 in the Robinson Auditorium in IRPS. Dr. Penhune remarked on the high quality of the symposium and encouraged everyone to come. Further information on the symposium can be found on the Web site.

The Industrial Internship Program and Graduate Training Program:
Imani Tius and Dr. Geert Schmid-Schönbein presented the Industrial Internship Program and Graduate Training Program. Top graduate students wishing to work in industry during the summer or during the school year will participate in the program. Members of the Board were asked to identify their companies' interests so that Imani could forward students' resumes to interested companies. The intellectual property developed as a result of student's work will belong to the company. The students will be graded for their work in the companies basing on their final reports, in which proprietary information can be omitted. Dr. Walter Baxter shared the positive experience his company, Medtronic, Inc., has had with the program.

The new NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering:
Dr. Chien shared with the participants the news of establishing a new National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. The bill was passed by both the House and the Senate, and was signed into law by President Clinton on December 29, 2000. This will provide a home for Bioengineering at the NIH. At the same time it is important that the existing bioengineering-related activities will continue to proceed in the other Institutes and Centers in the NIH. Dr. Chien wrote a letter for Science magazine regarding the principles on which the new Institute will work. The letter will be published on March issue. The Institute will support the imaging and bioengineering research that are more crosscutting and not tightly connected with a specific disease.

Dr. Alan Paau of UCSD Technology Transfer Office spoke about the donation of intellectual property to UCSD. Celanese donated a wound dressing technology to UCSD. It was the second time that intellectual property was donated to the University of California. UCSD is now discussing the donation of intellectual property with some other companies.
The next Industrial Advisory Board Meeting will be held in May. A survey form will be sent to Board members to select the most suitable date.

Respectfully submitted: Tatyana Matusov