the prestigious nsf erc is an interdisciplinary initiative that connects academia industry and government partners to integrate engineering research and education with technological innovation to transform national prosperity health and security texas a&m university is an incubator of ingenuity and leadership dedicated to addressing the grand challenges facing our nation and world said texas a&m university president michael k young selection for the award by the national science foundation is a strong affirmation of our commitment to purpose-driven research to tackle the most pressing issues of our time and developing affordable access to life-saving technologies is among the most important the erc is initially funded by a five-year base award of $1975 million (which can be renewed for another $1556 million and a total potential term of 10 years for a potential total of over $35 million) ercs often become self-sustaining and typically leverage more than $50 million in federal and industry research funding during their first decade the grant will be administered through the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) for over 30 years nsf engineering research centers have promoted innovation helped to maintain our competitive edge and added billions of dollars to the us economy said nsf director france córdova they bring together talented innovators and entrepreneurs with resources from academia industry and government to produce engineers and engineering systems that solve real-world problems i am confident that these new ercs will strengthen us competitiveness for the next generation and continue our legacy of improving the quality of life for all americans nsf program director for paths-up deborah jackson emphasized the important role the center could play in bringing down costs the paths-up erc comprises a team of extraordinarily dedicated researchers who aim to develop cost-effective health care for underserved populations said jackson if paths-ups chronic disease interventions are successful they will have tackled a significant source of the skyrocketing national health care costs paths-up will be led by director dr gerard coté a texas a&m professor of biomedical engineering and will be housed in the health technologies building a newly renovated state-of-the-art 25 000-square foot building located in texas a&ms research park dr cote has a proven track record in developing innovation ecosystems driven by stakeholder input with a clear goal of commercialization of health-enhancing technologies said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering this aligns closely with our new enmed program in partnership with houston methodist which prepares physician engineer graduates with the clinical skills to diagnose symptoms and treat patients along with the engineering mindset to solve problems invent new technologies and rapidly move these innovative ideas to practice in patient care paths-up has two overarching goals the first is to engineer technologies that can overcome the barriers usually faced by point-of-care devices the technologies developed need to be deployable highly accurate easy-to-use and affordable the second goal is to recruit and educate a diverse group of scientists and engineers who will lead the future in developing enabling technologies to improve health in underserved communities on average every 30 seconds one person in the united states will be diagnosed with diabetes and another will suffer a coronary event like a heart attack these diseases are even more devastating in rural and urban underserved communities where they occur at much higher rates than the national average said coté i have been blessed with being able to lead an awesome team of technically excellent people who have a collective vision and a passion to change this paradigm for the health of the underserved populations by engaging them toward developing innovative user-friendly and cost-effective technologies and systems that can be used at the point-of-care in these communities this initiative will also include broad societal outreach including participatory design and community engagement that will prevent paths-up from perpetuating shortfalls in current biomedical practices in underserved communities and will instead establish relationships to develop technologies that seamlessly integrate into peoples lives the program will focus on two transformative engineered systems known as lab-in-your-palm and lab-on-a-wrist lab-in-your-palm allows for inexpensive remote diagnostic capabilities while lab-on-a-wrist allows for near continual monitoring paths-up will be the third active nsf erc in the state of texas the nanomanufacturing systems for mobile computing and mobile energy technologies (nascent) erc was established at the university of texas at austin in 2012 and the nanotechnology enabled water treatment (newt) systems erc was established at rice university in 2015 click here for more on paths-up