A Transformative Endowment to Honor a Mentor
A version of this story appeared on October 27, 2022, in UC San Diego Today.
Across more than three decades of mutual friendship, Shu Chien, renowned UC San Diego emeritus professor of bioengineering and medicine, has served as a mentor and sounding board for Gene Lay, the eminent biotechnology innovator and founder and CEO of the San Diego biotechnology company BioLegend In 2022, in honor of all that Chien has accomplished throughout his distinguished and prolific career, Lay committed $25 million through the Laygend Foundation as an endowment gift to UC San Diego. The contribution will offer sustained support for students, faculty and teaching facilities in the Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. In recognition of Lay’s tremendous gift, the bioengineering department will be renamed the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering.
“Gene Lay’s generous support will empower our bioengineering department to build on its well-recognized strengths in teaching, research and biotechnology workforce development,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “At the same time, Gene is recognizing and honoring Shu Chien’s incalculable contributions to UC San Diego and to the field of bioengineering. It’s only fitting that this tribute to Shu comes from Gene, another visionary leader in the worlds of biotechnology and innovation.”
Chien joined UC San Diego in 1988, after forging his own path to connect physiology, medicine, math and engineering at Columbia University. Working with a small group of creative thinkers at UC San Diego, Chien founded and served as the inaugural chair of the Department of Bioengineering, which is now regarded as one of the best in the world. Chien also created the UC San Diego Institute of Engineering in Medicine, which synergizes the research activities in engineering, science and medicine across campus, as well as the Bioengineering Institute of California, which links the 10 University of California campuses together to collaborate on research and education in bioengineering. At the national level, Chien played a critical role in the establishment of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering in the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I am very grateful that Dr. Shu Chien came into my life over 30 years ago. He is my role model,” said Lay. “His perseverance, integrity, caring nature and passion continue to inspire me to make a difference in the world. Dr. Chien’s work embodies the mission of the Laygend Foundation, which is to translate scientific discovery into life-changing therapies and medicine. I am proud to support Dr. Chien’s vision and the students and faculty of the bioengineering department at UC San Diego.”
The endowment will provide transformative annual recurring support for research and education, enabling the university to bolster the recruitment and retention of outstanding early-career bioengineering faculty and attract more talented bioengineering graduate students. It will also enhance undergraduate bioengineering student experiences and workforce development by creating new and upgraded hands-on instructional laboratories. Collectively, this funding will be critical for the department’s efforts to bridge gaps between bioengineering research and clinical impacts that directly improve human health for generations to come.
