Synthetic immunologist Milos Simic gets philosophical when discussing Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and the other brain diseases he fights.
“You can lose an arm, you can lose something else, but you’re still yourself,” Simic said. “When your brain cells die and parts of your brain deteriorate, it’s your very sense of self that fades away.”
Simic recently joined the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s Immunoengineering theme as Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering to help take his research to the next level.
Unlike engineering programs siloed into traditional departments like mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, and other rigid structures, UChicago PME is built around interdisciplinary themes. These are global problems that need solving, bringing together researchers across areas of study often separated.
This approach is what brought Simic to the University of Chicago.
“UChicago PME itself is the idea that you have all these different groups – quantum, immunoengineering, materials – all together under the same roof,” Simic said. “That’s a great way of fostering innovation, compared to the places where programs and researchers who could be working together are dispersed across the campus.”