Bioengineering in the new department
About the same time the Graduate Group was formed, early 1980s, not long after the founding of Genentech, major reorganization occurred in the life sciences at Berkeley. Faculty members from numerous small academic departments were redistributed over two very large departments-- the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) and the Department of Integrative Biology (IB). The prime force behind this restructuring was Dan Koshland, a Berkeley biochemist. One of the primary missions he envisioned for MCB was establishment of a strong and growing "bioengineering” activity. He was imagining designer “bugs,” bacteria genetically modified to produce harvestable quantities of desired biochemical compounds. Here we have bioengineering applied in the same sense that mechanical engineering and electrical engineering were traditionally applied. Mechanical engineering originally was technology based on the (physical) science of mechanics and the building of useful structures from mechanical components; electrical engineering was technology based on the (physical) science of electricity and the building of useful structures from electrical components. Prof. Koshland’s bioengineering would be technology based on biological science and the building of useful structures from biological components. Its success undoubtedly would depend on adaptation of process control theory from chemical engineering, but, at its heart, it would not be based on application of physical-sciences based engineering to biology. This form of bioengineering eventually would be shared by MCB and Berkeley’s College of Engineering. It would be a key element in the College’s new Bioengineering Department. That story begins with a strategic decision in 1991 by the Governing Commnittee of the Whitaker Foundation. .
The following paragraph is taken from a history of the Whitaker Foundation shown on the Biomedical Engineering Society website: "In 1991 the Governing Committee decided that to have the greatest impact on this nascent field, and ultimately on people’s health, the foundation should make a much more substantial and urgent investment. Biomedical engineering was at a turning point. It was becoming a well-organized field, and the converging revolutions in microelectronics and molecular biology were opening up vast new opportunities for engineers to contribute. The potential was great, but it was going to take time for this new field to get rolling. The Governing Committee envisioned a time when biomedical engineering would make a significant difference in human health. A sense of urgency arose. Why wait?"
The coming together of the Whitaker Foundation and Berkeley Bioengineering had been germinating for several years, and very likely would have taken place even without Chancellor Tien's funding campaign. That campaign, on the other hand, produced sufficient funds from private donors (including the Whitaker Foundation) and from the State of California for a massive replacement for the old molecular biology building, Stanley Hall. This new Stanley Hall would be dedicated to a new initiative-- establishing the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, which would foster cutting-edge biotechnology. The sole academic department in the reconstructed Stanley Hall, the new Bioengineering Department would be immersed in the institute-- an integral part of it. It would reflect the vision of the Whitaker Governing Committee, emphasizing microelectronics and molecular biology, with a large component dedicated to Dan Koshland's kind of bioengineering. Tom Budinger, long-time member of the Whitaker Foundation Scientific Review Committee, was selected to organize the new department and to serve as its founding chairman. Tom's background in chemistry (his undergraduate major) made him well-suited for this role; approximately half of the department's faculty would be chemists or molecular biologists.