The UW Engineered Biomaterials (UWEB) Engineering Research Center (ERC), in the few short years since its establishment, has made the UW a national center for research in biomaterials. UWEB is a three-way partnership that includes the federal government, the UW, and more than two dozen industrial consortium members. The National Science Foundation funded the research center, and the UW has provided a group of more than a dozen faculty laboratories that make up its infrastructure.

UWEB was established to give industrial sponsors a way to address biocompatibility problems that occur with some medical devices. Advances in biomaterials help sponsors with manufacturing and marketing new products. Blood vessels that are not chronically inflamed, bioprosthetic heart valves that no longer succumb to calcification, and contact lenses that resist fouling are examples of products that bioengineering advances might eventually make possible.

The Center fosters a partnership between academia and industry by directing energies toward the engineering of healing biomaterials. An active program of education and outreach includes research experience for high school and undergraduate students, training for middle-school science teachers, and K-12 outreach.