History
Once upon a time (2005), a group of fearless scientists and clinicians set out on a journey and descended into the shadowy abyss between engineering and medicine. Their goal was to find and establish new routes and make them accessible for future groups. They called their team of explorers "CMBE", which stood for Clinical Morphology and Biomedical Engineering. CMBE initially was the result of a merger of the Labor für Orthopädische Biomechanik (LOB) founded in 1990 by Erwin Morscher, and the Hightech Research Center (HFZ) founded by Hans-Florian Zeilhofer in 2004. The team was complemented by the Center for medical Image Analysis & Navigation (CIAN) founded by Philippe Cattin in 2007 (sponsored by Hansjörg Wyss) and the Biomaterials Sciencer Center (BMC) founded by Bert Müller in 2007 (sponsored by Thomas Straumann).
Through perseverance and persistence they finally found the ascent on the other side of the abyss. Their success made clear that the gap between medicine and engineering could only be bridged by groups of very different experts and characters, and that, therefore, collegiality, creativity, and mutual trust – were and are indispensable for any Abyss Overcomer.
Now that the path had been traced and mapped, they could set about building the bridgeheads. For this task, many miraculous specialists of the MIRACLE Project (sponsored by the Werner Siemens Stiftung) joined the team. And the name was also changed. From now on, the mission was called: Department of Biomedical Engineering. Since November 2014 it aims for connecting the two discplinary continents with as many bridges as possible and making the crossing, which they called "translation", as easy as possible for people, ideas, technologies and methods.
You who are about to cross this bridge, know that you will arrive on the other side as someone else.
In November 2014, the DBE was founded, yet the celebration of its inauguration only took place on 24 August 2015 in the new premises in the so called "Innovationszentrum Nordwestschweiz". More groups can build more bridges between bench and bedside simultaneously and the need for such bridges is so hige, that the DBE quickly consisted of roughly 70 researchers in Allschwil and around 60 medical doctors from the University Hospital Basel and the University Children's Hospital Basel. Now the project began to gain momentum. More brainpower, more ideas, more perspectives, more skills, more knowledge, more collaborations made the project faster and faster.
In December 2023, the DBE moved to new premises in the newly built GRID designed by Herzog and De Meuron within the BaseLink innovation district. During the inauguration on 30 January 2024, Thomi Jourdan, Director of the Department for Economy and Health of Basel-Landschaft, Andrea Schenker-Wicki, rector of the University of Basel, and head of the DBE, Philippe Cattin, pressed the button to release a laser robot to cut the traditional red ribbon in front of 100 guests from politics, clinics, University, industry, and research.
1/11 The University of Basel's first organizational unit sited in the Canton Basel-Land: The Department of Biomedical Engineering in Allschwil. (Image: University of Basel)
2/ 11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
3/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
4/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
5/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
6/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz
7/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
8/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
9/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
10/11 Opening of the Department of Biomedical Engineering (Image: University of Basel, Peter Schnetz)
