In May of 1998 a group of Stanford faculty, led by James Spudich, organized a grass roots effort to initiate a bold enterprise, known informally as Bio-X, to facilitate interdisciplinary research and teaching in the areas of bioengineering, biomedicine and biosciences.

Stanford Bio-X operates across the Schools of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, Earth Sciences and the School of Law. In September of 1998 Provost Rice and Vice Provost Kruger created a Planning Committee consisting of faculty from the three Schools. This group developed Stanford Bio-X and the concepts of a radical new building, now called The James H. Clark Center.