Gift Will Help Expand Collaborations Between Weill Cornell Medicine and Meinig School
A decade after its creation, Cornell's Department of Biomedical Engineering has received a $50 million endowment gift that will expand and elevate it as the Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering. In addition to providing resources to hire leading engineers and support the recently launched undergraduate major in biomedical engineering, the Meinig family's gift will maintain and enhance research partnerships between biomedical engineers in Ithaca and scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The gift, from Nancy Meinig '62 and Peter Meinig '61, along with daughters Anne '87, Kathryn, MBA '93, and Sarah and their own families, represents the largest single philanthropic commitment by individual donors to one of the university's colleges in Ithaca.
"Together we are focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of complex conditions like cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Laurie H. Glimcher, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medicine. "We are deeply grateful to the Meinig family, whose generosity will enable us to expand our collaborations and advance our critical work translating new discoveries into the best patient care."
One current collaboration involves developing a laser-based surgical therapy for a debilitating condition called focal epilepsy, a seizure disorder characterized by over-activity in one area of the brain. Anticonvulsive medications don't work for patients with this disease; the current therapy is surgically removing the affected part of the brain. While the procedure often leads to fewer and less severe seizures, it can also produce a loss of brain function.
"The patient is basically trading epilepsy for the functional equivalent of a stroke," said Dr. Chris Schaffer, an associate professor in biomedical engineering and the director of graduate studies at Cornell University. "Our goal is to develop a surgical procedure that results in far less collateral damage while still controlling the number and intensity of seizures."
Dr. Schaffer developed an extremely precise laser scalpel that can cut deep inside tissue without affecting the functionality and structure of the unaffected areas of the brain. Dr. Theodore H. Schwartz, the David and Ursel Barnes Professor of Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery in the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center, envisioned using this scalpel during brain surgery to cut some of the neural connections that cause seizures while leaving the brain intact, a technique that might result in fewer complications and side effects and better overall outcomes. The two investigators and their labs have been working together on this project for nearly five years.
"We simply could not do this work without each other," Dr. Schaffer said.
Other collaborations between physicians and biomedical engineers, including tissue-engineered ears, spinal discs, and 3D-printed synthetic arteries, have shown promise in early testing and have the potential to dramatically improve patient outcomes for a variety of conditions.
"The Meinig family's gift is a game changer, in terms of both its size and the effect it will have on engineering at Cornell," said Dr. Lance Collins, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering at Cornell University. "The health field is extraordinarily important to Cornell Engineering and Weill Cornell Medicine, and our work and collaborations are focused in this area. Biomedical engineering is a critically important bridge between Weill Cornell Medicine and the Ithaca campus, and it's a relationship that we only want to strengthen."
"The Meinigs — individually, as a couple and as a family — have made a tremendous difference in so many areas for Cornell," said Cornell President Elizabeth Garrett. "Their new gift sets us on a course for increased impact in biomedical engineering and the convergent biosciences, an interdisciplinary effort that will drive advances in health and wellbeing over the next decades. The Meinig School will be a powerhouse of teaching and research with consequence for generations to come."
The gift was borne out of the Meinigs' long and close relationship with Cornell. Peter Meinig is chairman emeritus of the Cornell Board of Trustees, and he and Nancy Meinig are both presidential councilors and co-chairs of the university's sesquicentennial committee. Peter Meinig has also become increasingly involved with the engineering school, where he has been partnering with the dean to help guide and articulate the college's future strategic direction.
"A big part of why we made this gift is to motivate other people to make gifts to BME, the College of Engineering and Cornell, large or small," he said in a story published in the Cornell Chronicle. "There are many great opportunities to support and engage with the university."
Dr. Marjolein van der Meulen, the James M. and Marsha McCormick Director of Biomedical Engineering and the Swanson Professor of Biomedical Engineering, is committed to ensuring that Cornell's future strategic direction is realized with this gift. For her part, that means supporting existing collaborations between investigators at the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering and Weill Cornell Medicine, while also helping to establish new ones. The Meinig gift will allow biomedical engineering to hire additional faculty, recruit outstanding students, and drive excellence in teaching and research.
"There's a natural marriage between the life sciences, the physical sciences and engineering, with the medical sciences as a sub-section of that," she said. "I see biomedical engineering as the center point between these research interests." Maintaining strong relationships and collaborations despite the physical distance that separates New York City from Ithaca is vital to both parties. "Our shared intellectual interests can trump the distance."
Dr. Jason Spector, a professor of surgery and of plastic surgery in otolaryngology at Weill Cornell Medicine, an adjunct professor in the Meinig School at Cornell, and a plastic surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, said that he collaborates with his biomedical engineering counterparts on at least a half-dozen research projects.
"It's an absolutely wonderful relationship and a great example of bringing together complimentary skills," he said, noting that one of his most high-profile projects with Dr. Lawrence Bonasser, a professor of biomedical engineering, involves 3D printing artificial ears. "Whether it's lasers, polymer chemistry or another specialty, the faculty in Ithaca have expertise in a phenomenal range of sciences. This means that when I have a clinical or translational project, they can bring it to fruition and vice versa."
Dr. Roger Härtl, a professor of neurological surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine and the director of spinal surgery at the Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center, has also benefitted from these collaborations. "Biomedical engineers have the ability to develop tools, like tissue-engineered spinal discs that I need for my patients. With the input from us clinical scientists, they understand better what the needs are for our patients," he said. "We inspire each other and now we have many fruitful collaborations in the works resulting from clinical need."