This painting (oil and acrylic on canvas, 48”x36”) by Lewis J. Thomas, Jr., M.D., former Director of BCL and Associate Director of IBC, commemorates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the computer labs.
Washington University played a major role in pioneering the acceptance of laboratory computing by the biomedical research community. In 1964, the Biomedical Computer Laboratory (BCL) was chartered as a research division within the Washington University School of Medicine. That same year, a team of scientists and engineers who developed the Laboratory Instrument Computer (LINC) relocated from MIT to Washington University’s newly established Computer Research Laboratory (CRL). CRL evolved into the Computer Systems Laboratory (CSL) in 1967 and was administratively located under the Chancellor’s Office. BCL and CSL occupied adjoining buildings on the Medical Campus and worked closely to advance the use of computers in medicine.
Under the direction of Jerome R. Cox Jr. (1964-1975) and Lewis J. Thomas Jr. (1975-1995), BCL focused on the application of computer technologies to biology and medicine. BCL’s early work included projects in sensory evoked-response recording and analysis, radiation treatment planning, nuclear medicine, ECG rhythm monitoring, fetal ECG analysis, analysis of CT-scan data, and quantitative tissue characterization via ultrasound. Later projects included positron emission tomography (PET), physical and RFLP mapping of DNA, electron-microscopic autoradiography, computational optical sectioning and applications of massively parallel computation to computationally demanding algorithms.
Under the direction of LINC co-developers Wesley A. Clark (1967-1972) and Charles E. Molnar (1972-1991), CSL focused on developing advanced computer technologies suited to biomedical research problems. CSL’s first major project was the development of macromodules as tools for designing and building experimental computer systems. This work led in turn to applications experiments, research in molecular modeling, studies of the ‘glitch’ or metastability problem that arises in communication with computer systems and designing VLSI integrated circuits. CSL also continued to provide support to LINC users into the early 1970s.
From 1967 to 1983, BCL and CSL collaborated within a loose administrative structure called the Washington University Computer Laboratories (WUCL), with support from a major National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant entitled “A Resource for Biomedical Computing.” WUCL’s successful projects not only closely involved scientific collaborators throughout all stages of system design, development, and evaluation, but also introduced students from the engineering disciplines into the biomedical research laboratory.
With the conclusion of the NIH grant, the collaborative style of the Washington University Computer Laboratories was formalized with the founding of the Institute for Biomedical Computing (IBC) in 1984. IBC administratively unified BCL and CSL, though each laboratory retained its distinctive organization and identity. The interschool institute also bridged the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering and Applied Science: in addition to its main location on the Medical Campus, IBC had space in Lopata Hall, providing a formal presence on the Danforth Campus. Charles Molnar served as inaugural director (1984-1991), followed by David J. States (1992-2000).
As access to personal computers that could be readily adapted to laboratory applications became commonplace, the need for specialized hardware design diminished, and IBC’s primary mission was to pursue research in the use of advanced computational and theoretical methods for the solution of biomedical problems. IBC also came to include the Center for Molecular Design, the Medical Informatics Group, and the Center for Computational Biology.
In 2000, IBC was reorganized as the Center for Computational Biology (CCB) to include tenured faculty in three departments (Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Biomedical Engineering, and Genetics). CCB focused on the unique opportunities presented by the sequencing of the human genome as well as the genomes of other species.
Learn more about the history and contributions of the computer laboratories in the Jerome R. Cox Jr. Oral History. In addition to being the inaugural director of BCL, Dr. Cox was instrumental in bringing the LINC team to Washington University.
