The Program in Biophysics (University of Michigan) records primarily document the activities of the Program immediately preceding and proceeding the reorganization of the Biophysics Research Division of the Institute of Science and Technology into the Program in Biophysics in 2007.
The bulk of the materials are in the Administrative Records series, comprised of executive committee and faculty meeting minutes. The Department History series is comprised of the proposals for the Program, as well as written historical timelines and obituaries of former directors and chairs. The Publicity and Events series contains materials concerning lectures and symposia sponsored by the Program in Biophysics, and their associated promotional materials.
The Program in Biophysics (University of Michigan) is a graduate studies program in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA); the Program also administers a concentration in biophysics for undergraduates. The program includes fields of study in Structural Biology, Spectroscopy and Microscopy, Computational Biophysics and Bioinformatics, and Biophysical Chemistry.
The Program began as a doctoral degree in Biophysics, established in 1949 in the Rackham Graduate School, chaired by Professor Robley Williams. At the time, the Board of Regents planned to establish a Department of Biophysics starting in the 1950-51 academic year; this decision was rescinded when Williams left the University in 1950. A bachelors concentration in Biophysics was created in the Department of Physics.
Following the departure of Williams, Dean Hayward Keniston of LSA charged Professor Gordon Sutherland to convene a committee that would "serve to coordinate all of the interests in the field." In 1951, the committee recommended to the Division of Biological Sciences "the early establishment of a Laboratory of Biophysics within the Physics Department with a separate allocation of funds."
In 1955, the Regents, on request of the Department of Physics, established the Biophysics Research Center. In 1958, Samuel Krimm was appointed director of the Research Center; that year, he submitted an application for an National Institutes of Health (NIH) graduate training grant. The application was rejected on the grounds that the Research Center appeared, to the NIH, to be "largely a paper structure which could not exercise the strong and continuing leadership in support of the proposed program which is so necessary to its success." This led Krimm and the members of the Center to submit a proposal to the Regents that the Center be transferred to the newly formed Institute of Science and Technology. The Center was reorganized into the Biophysics Research Division (BRD) of the Institute of Science and Technology later that year. As a result, in 1964 under the Director J. Lawrence Oncley, the BRD was awarded an NIH Training Grant in Biophysics.
In 2005, as the role of teaching in the BRD mission expanded, Provost Paul Courant appointed a panel to determine whether Biophysics would be more appropriately housed in the College of LSA. In 2007, the Regents approved the transfer of the BRD from the Office of the Vice President for Research to LSA, and renamed the BRD to the Program in Biophysics.
Works Cited
- "Biophysics history, revised", 2013, https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/195678, Program in Biophysics (University of Michigan) records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. (See the Department History series)
Director of the Biophysics Research Center
| Date |
Event |
| 1955-1958 | Gordon Sutherland |
| 1958-1961 | Samuel Krimm |
Chair of the Biophysics Research Division of the Institute of Science and Technology
| Date |
Event |
| 1962-1976 | J. Lawrence Oncley |
| 1976-1986 | Samuel Krimm |
| 1986-1989 | Martha Ludwig |
| 1989-1993 | John Langmore |
| 1993-1995 | Martha Ludwig, interim |
| 1996-2001 | Rowena Matthews |
| 2001-2002 | Erik Zuiderweg, interim |
| 2002-2007 | James Penner-Hahn |
Director, Program in Biophysics
| Date |
Event |
| 2007-2008 | Duncan G. Steele |
| 2008-2012 | Jens-Christian D. Meiners |
| 2012- | Charles L. Brooks III |
