Professor Bustamante (centre), at CEIT joined by
Maite Mujika; Director Elena de Juan, and Sergio Arana

Experts from the University of California, Berkeley recently visited the bioengineering labs of CEIT and Tecnun in the Technology Park of San Sebastian in order to support the agreement they have over the Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering that is taught in the Basque Country.

The director of this Master’s course, Doctor Elena de Juan, says that her team has looked from the beginning to attract “the best engineers and researchers from other areas, from inside and outside the country, so we can be competitive in the area of Biomedical Engineering”. The latest visit was from Professor Carlos Bustamante, considered one of the most important researchers in the area of bioengineering. This was in addition to a three-week visit to Tecnun and CEIT by the American couple Cristina Davis and Sanjay Kumar, specialists from Berkeley’s Department of Bioengineering.

Dr. Kumar, lecturer in Cell Biomechanics in the Master’s, has been recognised by American president Barack Obama as being among the top 100 researchers in his country. This award, given by the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, is awarded annually to those who work in research at the cutting edge of scientific and technological innovation and who have shown their capacity for scientific leadership.

Kumar has also been given a prize recently by the prestigious American National Institutes of Health with the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, an award which aims to finance the most innovative ideas in the area of biomedical research that produce outstanding advances and transformations in life sciences. The study, presented along with 2000 other entries, was one of 31 pieces of research work given awards, and it received a prize of 1.5 million dollars.

The MSc in Biomedical Engineering, as well as having the support of the University of California in Berkeley, is backed by national and international companies in the biomedical technology sector that participate in the teaching and offer work experience to the students in their laboratories. Tecnun has also set up an undergraduate degree in Bioengineering, starting in the academic year 2009-2010.