An Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Based Business And Instrumentation Development Project

In 2003/4 and 2004/5, UVP sponsored Clinic projects that combined students and faculty from both the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences and Harvey Mudd College. Strategies developed for the first year were critical to the success of the program, and included weekly joint team meetings with all participants, both on campus and at the UVP, Inc. site in Upland, California. In addition, strong participation by the UVP engineering and management staff in the activity was needed. For the students, exposure to multifunctional team environments where marketing, sales, manufacturing, engineering, chemistry and biology come together to explore new technology and apply that knowledge to product development was critical for learning about the business of science. It provided students with insights into instrumentation and product development approaches and challenges, enabling them to make informed decisions about future careers. The company benefited from fresh ideas, lateral thinking, innovative design and fundamentally-new approaches to developing instrumentation. In addition, the company not only had access to a pool of highly-trained talent during the project, but potential hires and consultants after the students graduate. The project described in this paper was funded in the 2004/5 year to develop strategies for the uniform illumination of biological samples for fluorescent digital imaging applications in genetic analysis.