Taking a More Practical Approach to Biomedicine

In a major boost to the growth and development of one of Southern California’s most important industries, the Claremont Colleges are launching a new college devoted to training engineers and executives for work in biomedicine.

The aim of the new school, the Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, is to train people to work in companies that make medical instruments and biomedical devices, a field related to but different from pure biotechnological research.

“There is a need for people with knowledge of engineering, biology, chemistry and teamwork who can put it all together” to turn technology into products, says Richard Nesbit, vice president of advanced technology for Beckman Instruments in Fullerton.

Graduates equipped with those interdisciplinary skills will find job offers aplenty from the many companies in Southern California--such as Pacesetter, Diagnostic Products, Advanced Bionics, Urogenesis and hundreds more--that produce heart pacemakers, insulin pumps, cochlear implants and gene analysis instruments.

“The institute will emphasize master’s degrees rather than doctorates, practical business skills more than research capabilities,” says Henry Riggs, president of the new institute, who moved over from the presidency of Harvey Mudd College, which is renowned for engineering.

The cost of starting the new institute will be $100 million. Claremont hopes to receive half of that in a single donation from a foundation that backs scientific research but wishes to remain unnamed until papers are signed on its $50-million grant.

Claremont is not alone in biomedical expansion. At UCLA, the engineering and medical schools are joining forces to start a training effort for biomedical engineers, backed by a $14-million grant from the Whittaker Foundation.

UC San Diego, a national leader in biomedical engineering, is expanding facilities. UC Irvine, which has played a major role in the growth of Orange County’s biomedical industry, is increasing research in neurobiological processes to combat stroke and other disorders.

Caltech launched 17 biomedical companies last year and signaled its intention to press further in biomedicine with the appointment of David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist, as its new president. USC, with graduates commanding biomedical companies all over the region, is studying ways to help entrepreneurs.

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In short, there’s a biomedical boom going on. One reason is the vast increase of knowledge in recent years.

“The amounts of data coming out of the human genome project give rise to new industries, such as bio-informatics,” says Riggs, referring to computer science and biology working in combination in drug design.

The work has changed. Where companies such as Beckman once made simple blood analyzers, today they develop hardware and software to analyze proteins and genetic structures of blood samples.

And the workers have changed.

“We work in teams because it would be hard for one person to have deep knowledge in so many disciplines,” says Beckman’s Nesbit, who is an engineer.

Interdisciplinary education pays off.

“Biomedical engineers are in great demand. The pay can start at $35,000 a year and go to $85,000,” says David Anast, publisher of Biomedical Marketing and Employment Opportunities newsletters in Costa Mesa.

The university expansions will add to Southern California’s national preeminence in biotech and biomedicine. The six-county region has at least 2,000 biomedical companies with 90,000 employees at present.

And scores more companies are born each year thanks to close cooperation between companies and universities. Claremont officials canvassed more than two-dozen companies as to their needs in employees before deciding to launch the school’s seventh college.

Yes, but other states, such as Massachusetts, Texas, Illinois and Ohio, are rich in universities and medical institutes. What gives Southern California an edge?

New money and entrepreneurial energy. The philanthropic founders of great companies are still around. Arnold O. Beckman of Beckman Instruments has given generously to Caltech and UC Irvine. Al Mann, founder of Pacesetter and several other companies, will have a new research institute at UCLA. The Keck Foundation, built from a one-generation-old oil fortune, gives generously to science and is said to be contemplating a gift to Claremont.

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Southern California doesn’t win them all.

“Some companies complain about the quality of this area’s work force and business conditions,” says Ahmed Enany, director of the 40-company Southern California Biomedical Council.

He cites Genomed, a promising gene-sequencing firm born two years ago from UCLA but now relocated to Alameda County.

Yet the knowledge base is expanding so fast, that all parts of the West Coast are on a growth path. Years ago one of the nation’s leading biologists, Leroy Hood, left Caltech for the University of Washington in Seattle, lured by a grant from Microsoft. There Hood worked to combine computing and biology and create the new discipline of bio-informatics.

And it is Hood’s research, in turn, that helped inspire Riggs and his colleagues at Claremont to launch a new college devoted to engineering and the life sciences.

As knowledge powers industry, Southern California will hold its own.