In 2015, the University of Michigan opened Mcity, the world’s first controlled environment specifically designed to test the potential of connected and automated vehicle technologies that will lead the way to mass-market driverless cars. (Image: Michigan Photography.)

The University of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute (LSI) celebrated its grand opening in 2004. The institute serves as a nucleus of biomedical research at U-M. With an international faculty that represents a constellation of life science disciplines, the LSI embraces innovation, collaboration, and creative science that has a tangible impact on human health, longevity, and well-being. (Image courtesy of David Sherman, LSI.)

In 1998, University of Michigan Professor Mark Burns headed up a multidisciplinary team that created miniature “laboratory on a chip” kits to analyze DNA samples. (Image: Michigan Photography.)

In 1993, University of Michigan faculty member Francis S. Collins, co-discoverer of the genes for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, and Huntington’s disease, was named to lead the National Institutes of Health Human Genome Project. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1973, University of Michigan Professor Yoram Koren invented the world’s first computerized real-time adaptive controller for a milling machine, long before computers were commonly used in industrial applications. Before his work in the 1970s, numerical control of machine tools was more of an art than a science. Koren also was credited with coining the term “Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems,” which he defined as a manufacturing system that has “exactly the production resources needed, exactly when needed.” (Image: U-M College of Engineering.)

In 1964, University of Michigan professors Emmet Leith and Juris Upatinieks demonstrated the first three-dimensional holograms in the U.S. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1957, the Ford Nuclear Reactor was constructed at the University of Michigan, becoming the largest nuclear reactor on a college campus. The swimming pool-type reactor was dedicated to investigating peaceful uses of nuclear power. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

University of Michigan Professor Thomas Francis Jr. concluded the two-year national field trials of the Salk polio vaccine, and on April 12, 1955, announced to the world that the vaccine developed by his former student Jonas Salk was “safe, effective, and potent.” (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1954, University of Michigan Professor Donald Glaser developed the world’s first liquid bubble chamber to study high-energy subatomic particles. Glaser later won a Nobel Prize in physics for his invention. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1949, the University of Michigan established the Institute for Social Research. Today, the institute is the world’s premier academic social research and survey organization, bringing together scientists from a broad range of disciplines to study social behavior. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1934, University of Michigan scientists Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering began testing a new vaccine for Pertussis, or whooping cough. The vaccine worked, all but ending the scourge of whooping cough deaths. Kendrick and Eldering later combined shots of diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus into the single DPT shot children routinely receive today. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In the early 1900s, University of Michigan Professor Frederick G. Novy became one of the first people to demonstrate the histamine anaphylatoxin, which laid the groundwork for future developments in antihistamines. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1898, University of Michigan Professor Moses Gomberg synthesized the compound tetraphenylmethane, which included an “organic free radical,” a highly reactive collection of atoms. In doing so, Gomberg became the founder of radical chemistry, central to the understanding of everything from polymerization to atmospheric reactions. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

In 1869, the University of Michigan became the nation’s first university to own and operate its own hospital. The 20-bed facility was located in a former professor’s home and included no operating rooms or wards. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

The Detroit Observatory was built in 1854 expressly for scientific study. The observatory helped transform the University of Michigan into one of the first U.S. research universities. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)

Originally called Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, its first building was located on Bates Street in Detroit. The University moved to Ann Arbor 20 years later. (Image courtesy of U-M’s Bentley Historical Library.)