Georgia Tech and Emory have selected Larry McIntire,
a prominent biotechnology expert based in Houston, to chair the
schools’ joint Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical
Engineering.
McIntire, who has built a distinguished career in the health and
engineering fields, is currently chair of Rice University’s
Department of Bioengineering, as well as Rice’s Institute
for Biosciences and Bioengineering. He holds the E.D. Butcher Professorship
of Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at Rice.
“I have worked in this field for many years now, and Larry
McIntire is a noted expert in this area,” said Georgia Tech
College of Engineering Dean Don Giddens, who chaired the department
from 1997 until last year when he assumed his new position. “I
have a personal interest in this position and believe I’m
passing the torch to an outstanding leader.”
McIntire’s appointment concludes a national search to fill
the position, which is responsible for overseeing the department’s
academic and research programs in areas such as biomedical imaging,
tissue engineering, cancer technologies, neuroscience, computer-assisted
surgery and drug delivery. The department has 23 faculty members
and 15 staff members and offers academic degree programs at all
levels.
“It is with a great sense of excitement that I look forward
to joining the Georgia Tech/Emory Biomedical Engineering Department
and continuing its development into the best in the nation in biomedical
engineering research and education,” McIntire said.
McIntire joined Rice in 1970 as an assistant professor of chemical
engineering after earning his Ph.D. at Princeton. After becoming
a full professor in 1978, he went on to chair the department from
1981–89 and to serve as director of the Cox Laboratory for
Biomedical Engineering, one of three major labs that make up Rice’s
Institute for Biosciences and Bioengineer-ing. In 1991, McIntire
was appointed chair of the institute, which promotes cross-disciplinary
research and education among scientists and engineers at Rice and
their colleagues at the nearby Texas Medical Center, the Johnson
Space Center, private industry and other institutions.
In 1997, McIntire assumed the chair of the department of bioengineering
at Rice and currently holds appointments at the University of Texas
Medical School-Houston, Baylor College of Medicine and the M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center. He also is a member of the National Academy
of Engineering.
McIntire’s research focuses on understanding the interplay
between fluid mechanics, convective mass transport, cell biology
and molecular biology in the cardiovascular system.
“Dr. McIntire is an outstanding and proven leader in biomedical
engineering, with the skills and creative vision necessary to shape
and guide the very promising future of our collaborative relationship,”
said Tom Lawley, dean of the School of Medicine. “I look forward
to working with him as he accepts the challenges and opportunities
provided by the merging of engineering and medicine.”
Georgia Tech and Emory created the joint department of biomedical
engineering in the fall of 1997. The collaborative relationship
blends the expertise of medical researchers at Emory with that of
the engineering faculty at Tech, and is the first of its kind between
a public and private institution. The collaboration has resulted
in a biomedical engineering program ranked sixth in the nation by
U.S. News & World Report.
The two partner universities maintain a commercial research and
development center called EmTech Bio that facilitates the transfer
of biotech discoveries into marketable products and promotes the
development of local biotech companies. Located on Emory’s
Briarcliff Campus, the EmTech Bio incubator is managed by Tech’s
Advanced Technology Development Center.
In addition, Georgia Tech and Emory established the Georgia Tech/Emory
Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues (GTEC) in 1998 through
a grant from the National Science Foundation. Scientists within
GTEC combine their expertise in engineering and medicine to develop
substitute tissues to replace native tissues damaged by disease
or injury.
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