Washington University in St. Louis Installs Cory Berkland as First Mark and Becky Ruhmann Levin Professor

Cory Berkland, a respected innovator and developer of immune system therapeutics, has been named the inaugural Mark and Becky Ruhmann Levin Professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was installed Nov. 18 at a ceremony in Brauer Hall.

Berkland joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering this fall from the University of Kansas, where he served in the departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry along with Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. Berkland also will serve a portion of his time as a professor in the Department of Chemistry in Art & Sciences.

The position is named for Mark and Becky Ruhmann Levin, who established the professorship in 2016. Mark earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from McKelvey Engineering in 1973 and 1974. Becky Ruhmann Levin earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1979. The entrepreneurial couple went on to found and serve as leaders in several biotech and pharmaceutical ventures.

“Much like the Levins who established this position, Cory Berkland has a keen sense of the biotech industry, which will help position WashU as a leader in health innovation,” Chancellor Andrew D. Martin said. “WashU is leading the way in establishing a biomedical research program that connects the best engineers with the best medical scientists, and Cory will be an excellent contributor to that important work.”

“McKelvey alumnus Mark Levin is renowned in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, and the Levins have been wonderfully generous with both their time and financial support of our school,” said Aaron F. Bobick, dean and the James M. McKelvey Professor. “I can think of no better person for the inaugural Mark and Becky Ruhmann Levin Professorship than Cory Berkland. Cory is a serial entrepreneur focused on innovation in drug discovery and delivery while at the same time extraordinarily dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical engineers.”

In addition to Berkland’s continuing work developing immune system therapeutics to fight cancer, he will be working on research connected to his two-year $2.6 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to develop a new treatment for Type 1 diabetes.

Berkland’s lab studies pharmaceuticals and biomaterials, emphasizing molecular design to enable transport into the human body. He will be investigating ways to use antigen-specific immunotherapy, developing treatments to keep immune cells from attacking proinsulin, which is the main factor in developing Type 1 diabetes.

Berkland is a co-founder of Orbis Biosciences (which was acquired by Adare Pharmaceuticals), publicly traded Savara Pharmaceuticals, Bond Biosciences and several other startups. Berkland is chief scientific officer of Bond Biosciences and is an executive and chairman of the board for Kinimmune and Axioforce.

He garnered numerous teaching and research awards during his time at the University of Kansas, including being named to the National Academy of Inventors in 2017, becoming a fellow of the American Institute of Medical Biological Engineering in 2015 and receiving a Leading Light Award in 2013.