University partners with Jump Trading to bring engineering and healthcare together

By Amy Karlstedt

A new facility in Peoria called Jump Center, aims to create a partnership between doctors and engineers that will pave the way for new advancements in the health care industry. 

After receiving a gift of $25 million from Jump Trading, the University’s College of Engineering will start working on more advanced health care technologies with the firm at the facility. Another $25 million matching fund will be initiated by the OSF Health care Foundation, as well as the University providing support of $12.5 million each year it’s in operation. 

This combined effort is called Jump ARCHES, or Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation, and it will bring medical professionals into collaboration with bio-medical, industrial, mechanical and even computer-science engineers to enhance medical simulation and education. 

The goal is to lower health care costs, said Andreas Cangellaris, dean of the College of Engineering.

“We have great momentum in bioengineering and the health care field,” he said in an email. “But health care engineering is such a broad field. … Its successful pursuit calls for us to (be) innovative in material science and engineering, control, new sensor technology, human-machine interfaces, the list goes on. You can build a century’s worth of breakthroughs on this frontier.” 

Get The Daily Illini in your inbox!

  • Catch the latest on University of Illinois news, sports, and more. Delivered every weekday.
  • Stay up to date on all things Illini sports. Delivered every Monday.
Thank you for subscribing!

Cangellaris also said the expanding student engineering body has a passion to bridge the gap between engineers and doctors. He added that several University engineering students are interning at the facility, and University faculty, as well as a few seniors in the college, also are doing research for Jump ARCHES.

“The connections between engineering and medicine are growing very fast, and our students recognize it and are very passionate about it,” he said. “Using technology innovation to prevent disease and to save people’s lives is such a compelling call for more young people to pursue studies at the intersection of engineering and medicine.”

Rashid Bashir, the dean of the department of bioengineering, added to Cangellaris’ enthusiasm for the program.

“This opportunity will provide engineering students to do translational projects in the health care systems engineering area, especially as it relates to simulations of medical and clinical processes and procedures.” 

He added that the partnership serves his department’s long term goals of getting engineers and physicians to work side by side.

“Health care is one of the grand challenges of this century and advancing bioengineering by further integration and fusion of engineering and technology with medicine will benefit the patients in new and unimaginable ways,” he said.

Lela DiMonte, research assistant at Jump and graduate student, said in an email that the partnership goes back and forth. 

“New ideas from physicians spur new R&D by engineers, which is then brought back to physicians for implementation. The collaborative efforts create excitement and push for more rapid development,” she said.

The Jump Center is also expected to pump roughly $90 million into the local economy of Peoria and surrounding areas over the next five years.

Amy can be reached at [email protected].