Benefactor’s $30 Million Gift Establishes New Bioengineering Department

Robert E. Fischell, M.S. ’53, physics, and a 1996 honorary doctor of science, has spent the better part of his career saving or improving lives with the invention of a host of life-saving medical devices. Now, with a gift of $30 million to the A. James Clark School of Engineering, Fischell is giving engineering students an opportunity to develop ideas and create devices of their own to improve health care and change millions of lives.

His gift, one of the three largest ever received by the university, will establish the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute of Biomedical Devices in the Clark School. In a separate gift, his sons, David, Scott and Tim, committed $1 million to support the new department.

“I want undergraduate and graduate students to have the vision to search for answers to scientific questions and the courage to pursue their ideas. This gift focuses on students’ ability to innovate, to make new devices, and to help mankind cure any disease imaginable,” Fischell explains. He recounts his own version of the Serenity Prayer that has guided much of his work, “God grant me the courage to use my intellect to pursue medical treatments that can change the course of human life.”

Robert E. Fischell (second from left) has established a bioengineering program at Maryland with help from his three sons (from left) David, Scott and Tim.

Fischell, who holds more than 200 patents, is the father of modern medical stents, lifelong pacemaker batteries and implantable insulin pumps. His sons are his closest collaborators and one of their latest innovations is a pacemaker-sized implantable computer that provides the earliest possible warning of an impending heart attack. Fischell founded Angel Medical Systems Inc., named by his granddaughter, Jennifer, and run by his son, David, to bring the technology to market. It is one of more than a half dozen companies, including Pacesetter Systems, IsoStent, Neuropace and NeuraLieve, which he has founded since 1969 to develop his inventions.

His family shares his passion for changing the world through inventive genius, hard work and philanthropy. “The deepest happiness comes from what you are doing to make the world a better place,” says Fischell, who is now busy instilling those values in his grandchildren. “Joy in life comes from what you accomplish and what you have done to help humankind.”

Fischell serves on the university’s Board of Trustees and the Clark School’s Board of Visitors. —NG

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