Now, Grimes directs the program with mentorship from the former directors. She fondly recalls when Colman took her to dinner in 2012, advising her to work hard to recruit the best faculty talent to engage with the program. Heeding that advice, Grimes recruited four professors as co-directors — April Kloxin from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Jessica Tanis from the Department of Biological Sciences, and Don Watson and Lauren Genova from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

This team, along with program coordinator Jessica Pappas, keeps the curriculum fresh and relevant, with input from 50 affiliated faculty and an external advisory board from industry and other academic institutions. 

Also unique to UD’s program are mentoring “grand rounds,” which bring together program leaders and faculty to discuss the best ways to support student success in an anonymized way. 

“People here take mentoring very seriously, and we think about doing things in new ways,” Grimes said.

UD’s program was the first in the national CBI network to admit engineering students, as well as to admit students in a two-track system, where they can choose between distinct career pathways. 

All of this, Grimes said, has allowed the program “to be inclusive for every student and to grow different types of scientists.”

The ability to see and experience different labs was the primary attraction for Marina Vasconcelos when she was applying to graduate school.

Now in the third year of her doctoral program in chemistry and biochemistry at UD, Vasconcelos is doing research on Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. She has already helped to secure research funding for the Grimes lab from the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. 

She wants to become a medical science liaison, a kind of unbiased scientific adviser who serves as a bridge between pharmaceutical companies and physicians. 

“It’s a role where you need to know the science behind a disease, with the ability to communicate to the companies what physicians are seeing in the clinic and want to see researched, and to share back with the physicians what the companies want to know,” she said.

Vasconcelos has already gone on a CBI “sabbatical” at Johns Hopkins University to work with a physician-scientist who approaches her science in a very clinical way. 

The program has made other important impacts. She got her beloved dog, Princess, thanks to a fellow CBI student whose aunt operates a Corgi rescue.

The foundation for an industry career

For Ann O’Brien, senior director of analytical development at Incyte, the CBI program helped her find her niche. She was a student in the program from 2002–2007.

When she started grad school at UD, O’Brien had already worked in industry as an analytical chemist for a few years and wanted to prepare herself for the next level.

When he started his doctoral program at UD, Taylor knew he wanted to work on medical applications, but he didn’t know what lab to join. The CBI program helped him make connections.

His doctoral research focused on biomaterials for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. He used computational tools to design materials similar to collagen and tissue-like proteins, then the scaffolds for them to grow on, and the particles for delivering drugs in the body.

In the process, he went from a bio-heavy background to a materials science one, thanks to his faculty advisers, Arthi Jayaraman and April Kloxin, as well as lab rotations with Kristi Kiick and Millie Sullivan — all in the College of Engineering. 

“Getting direct feedback for this work was a huge selling point for the program,” he said. 

The sense of community and the opportunity to mentor younger CBI students were additional pluses. 

“I really love mentorship and teaching,” said Taylor, who gave a seminar at UD recently. “I’m thankful for my time at CBI, and I still see the faculty there as my mentors.”

Program graduates also have become research professors at the University of Arizona, Villanova, Layfette and the College of Wooster, Grimes said.