Research bundled

The new institute for research in biomedical technology and technical medicine, the successor of the BMTI institute since last January, was named MIRA. Scientific director Clemens van Blitterswijk announced this last week. Mira symbolizes amazement and high ambition. MIRA's most important target is the development of technologies that can be used in a clinic. The institute wants to position students to achieve this goal. Within all four research areas of the institute, two part-time professors, who have a clinical background, will be appointed. In cooperation with hospitals, the possibility for graduation spots for master's students and joint research projects can be secured. The institute's four research tracks are regeneration, biomedical imaging and diagnostics, targeted therapeutics and motor and neural systems. Every branch will get a so-called entrepreneurial professor. `One of our goals is to set up our research in a business-like manner,' says van Blitterswijk. `These entrepreneurial professors will get the responsibility to make an inventory of what commercial ideas are around to help set up spin-offs.' The name MIRA is deliberately not meant to be an abbreviation. `A name should be easy to remember and with an abbreviation you usually forget what it stands for,' says van Blitterswijk. He issued a competition where names like the Kolff Institute (after the inventor of the artificial kidney who died last February) and Alice (symbolizing youthful curiosity) came up, but none of the entries were selected. `At the same time, the daughter of Professor Vinod Subramaniam, Mira, was born. We thought MIRA was an excellent name for our institute.' In Spanish the name means `look!' and in Latin, Slavic and Hindi it means `glorious and successful.' Van Blitterswijk explains: `It symbolizes amazement, looking at the world in a youthful and open-minded way. Mira is also the name of a star, which symbolizes our high level of ambition.' The name will be expanded into a slogan, making it clear what the MIRA Institute represents. The slogan is not yet known. Van Blitterswijk has not yet invested in a lay-out and logo, because he wants to keep in line with the new house style of the UT, which will be unveiled this week in a presentation.