Redwood City, Calif. – March 3, 2025 – In a ribbon-cutting ceremony today, Stanford University officially inaugurated the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Ideation and Prototyping Lab within the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility. This new lab aims to bolster medtech innovations on Stanford’s campus by fostering a community centered around medical device prototyping and multidisciplinary collaboration. The Chen Institute’s support enables the lab to provide engineering assistance and a collaborative workspace for projects involving biosensors, robotics, wearables, and medical devices.

The prototyping lab is designed to accelerate the transition from lab projects to viable prototypes, facilitating the later stages of translational research. By integrating deep tech, AI, and data science, the lab will drive novel health solutions through engineering. It offers new opportunities for Stanford faculty and students to leverage the strengths of a leading engineering school.

“The Stanford Nanofabrication Facility has long been a leading space for interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. This generous donation enables us to expand the capabilities of the current prototyping facility to foster innovation specifically for medical technology, within and beyond Stanford,” said Jennifer Widom, the Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the Stanford School of Engineering. “We’re grateful to the Chen Institute for making this important expansion possible, and excited to see the space take shape.”

The support will fund expert staff salaries, seed funding for prototyping facility usage, and the acquisition of essential equipment. Stanford faculty, students, and research scientists will benefit from expert technical assistance, access to tools and equipment, and workspace for device design and form-factor development.

The Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Ideation and Prototyping Lab works in partnership with the existing Prototyping Facility within Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and is located in the Paul G. Allen Building. SNF is part of the National Science Foundation’s National Nanofabrication Users’ Network. The lab is a user facility partly sustained by fees and will be open to organizations outside of Stanford, subject to lab availability.

To celebrate the opening of the Lab, Stanford organized a Symposium; the details of which can be found below.