The Knight Campus Story

Pioneering Oregon Spirit. Only Faster.

From the founding of Nike to pioneering zebrafish research, the University of Oregon has a long history of turning bold ideas into world-changing impact. The Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact represents the next chapter in that tradition — closing the gap between scientific discovery and the patients, communities, and industries that need it. Same Oregon spirit. Only faster. 

On Thursday, April 30, that ethos takes center stage at the tenth anniversary edition of Science Knight Out, "A Decade of Building Oregon's Future," a free public lecture at The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts in downtown Eugene. 

Bob Guldberg

Executive Director, Phil and Penny Knight Campus

Executive Director Bob Guldberg will open the evening with a look at what a decade of use-inspired, team-driven science can produce: startup companies and skilled innovators bringing cutting-edge technologies from the bench to the people who need them. 

Two separate stories of technology moving from the lab into the world will anchor the night and bring to life the Knight Campus mission of Science Advancing Society. 

Paul Dalton

Professor of Bioengineering · Founder, VivoTex

The first belongs to bioengineering professor Paul Dalton and PhD student Iman von Briesen. Dalton has spent years perfecting melt electrowriting — a 3D printing technology capable of building microscopic scaffolds that support cells as they grow into tissues and organs. What makes his lab distinctive isn't just the science, it's the philosophy. The goal isn't only discovery, but the application. "I don't mind where it's applied," Dalton says, "as long as it's applied." Dalton will share one way his team has gotten their solutions to users – through launching a startup based in the Knight Campus at the Papé Family Innovation Center. The company, Viovtex, is enabling melt electrowriting to be commercialized by users ranging from drug developers to Loreal cosmetics, and it’s all growing right here in Oregon.   

Iman von Briesen

PhD Candidate, Bioengineering

Von Briesen will then share another way the Dalton lab has made this innovation accessible: open-source approaches. A natural tinkerer with a propensity for hacking creative solutions, von Briesen helped bring melt electrowriting to labs around the world in an affordable and accessible way. This open-source mindset has encouraged the spread of this work right here at the Knight Campus, where it is being used to help regenerate muscle and beyond, and around the world, where it has even been applied to heart tissue. This has helped establish Eugene as a growing hub of expertise, drawing researchers and practitioners from around the world to learn and train on this technology. 

Kylie Williams

First PhD Graduate, Bioengineering · Clinical Engineering Director, Penderia

The second story has a full-circle quality that feels distinctly Oregonian. Years ago, Kylie Williams attended a Science Knight Out lecture as an undergraduate student and was captivated by Bob Guldberg speaking about the power of regenerative medicine. That night helped set her on a path that eventually led to the Knight Campus where she became the first graduate of the bioengineering PhD program, and is now Clinical Engineering Director at Penderia — a medical device startup co-founded by Knight Campus faculty member Keat Ghee Ong and also headquartered in the Papé Family Innovation Center. Williams, credits her training at the Knight Campus with giving her both the scientific depth and the business fluency to bring ideas to market. Now she is helping lead that charge and helping shape Oregon’s growing biotech sector.  

Keat Ghee Ong

Professor of Bioengineering · Co-founder, Penderia

Ong, an electrical engineer who started his academic career at Michigan Tech, grew frustrated with the academic loop – the endless cycle of grants and papers – and relocated his lab sight unseen to the Knight Campus based on the promise of getting discoveries to users faster. Ong’s lab specializes in implantable sensors — no batteries, no wires — that measure physical forces inside the human body and report real time measurements using RFID. Ong has moved this technology from the lab through his startup, Penderia, which is creating sensors for surgeons performing ACL reconstruction — giving experts instant, quantifiable data to complement their experienced hands. One day, this could improve patient outcomes and give clinicians real-time insight into their patients' recovery.