Internationally Recognized Engineer Mehran Mehregany to Join West Wireless Health Institute

Internationally Recognized Engineer Mehran Mehregany to Join West Wireless
Health Institute

Mehregany will serve as Executive Vice President of Engineering and Chief of
Engineering Research

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The West Wireless Health
Institute (WWHI), one of the world's first medical research organizations
dedicated to advancing health and well-being through the use of wireless
technologies, today announced renowned engineer Mehran Mehregany will join the
Institute as its executive vice president of engineering and chief of
engineering research. Mehregany will be responsible for planning and
implementing the Institute's engineering research and academic initiatives and
will begin November 2.

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Mehregany is considered one of the preeminent minds in microsystems technology
and is an entrepreneur who has founded, financed and managed a number of
technology startups. He joins WWHI from Case Western Reserve University,
where he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering
and Computer Science since 1990. While at Case Western, he also served as the
director of the MEMS Research Center for seven years and spent three years as
chairman of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. He
has held the Goodrich Professor of Engineering Innovation endowed chair since
2000, before which he held the George S. Dively Professor of Engineering
endowed chair.

"My career thus far has centered on developing innovative microsystems, and I
can't think of a more exciting place to continue my passion than in the
emerging field of wireless health," said Mehregany. "Microsystems technology
will help drive individualized medicine by enabling noninvasive, miniature
sensors that can be placed on or in a patient's body. The opportunities are
unlimited when you consider these small devices managing all types of
diagnostics and therapy remotely through a cellular or body area network
connection."

WWHI, launched on March 30, 2009, was founded with a $45 million gift from the
Gary and Mary West Foundation. In addition to founding the Institute, Gary
West is chairman of the board of directors. He is joined on the board by Dr.
Eric J. Topol, chief academic officer at Scripps Health and holder of the Gary
and Mary West Chair of Innovative Medicine, and Donald Jones, vice president
of Health and Life Sciences at Qualcomm. The nonprofit Institute is
headquartered in San Diego, California, the global hub for wireless life
science research and development.

"We couldn't ask for a more respected leader to build a world-class
engineering team for our organization," said West. "In addition to
contributing his notable research expertise, Mehran will recruit exceptional
post-docs from around the world to help develop ingenious sensors and devices
that will change medicine. The collaboration between engineers and clinical
teams in our classrooms and labs will be groundbreaking. Mehran will work
hand in hand with Dr. Topol and our medical experts to help execute this
vision."

Mehregany added, "The opportunity to accelerate technology that can save lives
and reduce health care costs will be tremendously rewarding, as is the
prospect for training postdoctoral fellows and developing educational
resources for the field. I look forward to being a part of the West Wireless
Health Institute and joining Gary West, Dr. Eric Topol and Don Jones as a
catalyst for this game-changing industry."

Mehregany received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1986 and 1990, respectively. From
1986 to 1990, he was a consultant to the Robotic Systems Research Department
at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was a key contributor to groundbreaking
microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) research. Mehregany has more than 300
publications describing his work, holds 18 U.S. patents, is the recipient of a
number of awards and is an editor for the Journal of Microelectromechanical
Systems. He previously served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of
Micromechanics and Microengineering and assistant-to-the-president of the
Transducers Research Foundation, where he currently serves as a trustee and
its treasurer.

For more information on WWHI, please visit www.westwirelesshealth.org.

ABOUT THE WEST WIRELESS HEALTH INSTITUTE
The West Wireless Health Institute (www.westwirelesshealth.org) is one of the
first medical research organizations in the world supporting the exploration
and application of wireless technologies to advance human health and
well-being. The nonprofit Institute is fostering an unprecedented convergence
of science, medicine, engineering and technology to change the way health care
is delivered. Scripps Health is the Institute's primary health care affiliate
and Qualcomm is its first technology sponsor. The West Wireless Health
Institute is based in San Diego, California.

SOURCE West Wireless Health Institute

Michele Guthrie of West Wireless Health Institute, +1-858-539-3500,
media@westwirelesshealth.org