Ecuadorian Ambassador to the United States Luis Benigno Gallegos Chiriboga visited Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen in late October to see medical design projects created by Rice students as part of the Rice 360°: Institute for Global Health Technologies and its Beyond Traditional Borders initiative. Gallegos toured the OEDK facility and met with Rice 360° faculty and staff and discussed plans to disseminate the Diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack in Ecuador this fall. He also heard about Rice 360° partnerships with communities around the world to design and implement low-cost, high-performance technologies that prevent disease, improve health and reduce poverty.

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Diagnostic technology is one area that holds great promise for creating highly effective, inexpensive technologies with global benefit. To read more about the technologies being developed at Rice, see the above link.

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The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today committed four years' worth of funding for an innovative biomedical training program between Rice University and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The unique program -- founded with a 2006 HHMI grant -- capitalizes on the strengths of Rice's top-10-ranked bioengineering program and M.D. Anderson's internationally renowned clinical programs. The training gives incoming graduate students an early opportunity to see how laboratory research is translated into clinical practice. HHMI today pledged $700,000 to renew the program for four years, bringing its total commitment to just over $1.5 million.

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A new Web site shares information about the yearlong discussions between Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) about a possible merger. The site compiles information that both schools have been communicating with their respective communities about the organizational and financial challenges of such a complex merger. It can be found at http://www.rice.edu/ricebcm.

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Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering and professor of electrical and computer engineering, John McDevitt, the Brown-Wiess Professor in Bioengineering and Chemistry, Jennifer West, the Isabel C. Cameron Professor in Bioengineering and department chair, and John Boles, the William Pettus Hobby Professor of History, co-authored this op-ed on the proposed Rice-Baylor College of Medicine merger and its benefits for Houston and Texas.

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