NIH Bioengineering Training Grant in Cardiovascular Pathophysiology Awarded to IME
The IME was awarded a 5-year, $1.7 Million NIH Bioengineering Training Grant in Cardiovascular Pathophysiology (PI: Peter F. Davies). The program will fund three pre-doctoral and three post-doctoral trainees in its first year, going up to four each in the 2nd to 5th years. Training will focus on quantitative cardiovascular pathophysiology, as it pertains to biomedical engineering at the molecular, cellular, and tissue levels using both hypothesis-driven and design-driven approaches to knowledge. The training faculty consists of fourteen IME interdisciplinary basic and clinical scientists in bioengineering and biomedical research. U.S. citizens and permanent residents are eligible for Training Grant support. For more information, please contact Marvin Jackson.
Clinical Medicine Experience for Bioengineering Undergraduates
A new course, Clinical Preceptorship in Biomedical Engineering was offered to Bioengineering Juniors for the first time in the spring of 2000. Directed by Professors Peter F. Davies (Pathology, and IME Director) and Mitchell Litt (Bioengineering), the course aims to cover areas of clinical medicine related to biomedical engineering, and provide in-depth exposure to selected clinical programs in the School of Medicine particularly where application of Bioengineering are integral to healthcare. Half of the course consists of lectures introducing the participating department or division. In this pilot semester, these were Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Cardiac Surgery, Neurology, Orthopaedic Surgery, Pathology (Laboratory Medicine Division), Radiology and Pediatrics (CHOP). In the second half, students are assigned to one of the units and participate in its activities, including, for example, clinical rounds, discussions with patients, observation of clinical procedures, participation in a research project, and others. The course is rigorous with multiple assays, midterm exam, and final presentations of clinical activities. The pilot was very successful and the course will be developed further.
Penn Orthopaedic Bioengineering -- Genetics Institute Training Program
At the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory (Director: IME member Louis J. Soslowsky), graduate students and post docs have the opportunity to undertake an externship at the Musculoskeletal Sciences Laboratories at Genetics Institute in Cambridge, MA. This unique training experience is part of the Industrial Partnership Program of the Whitaker Special Opportunity Award in Orthopaedic Bioengineering. This five-year program which started in 1998 allows up to three trainees per year to spend a period of several weeks to several months at Genetics Institute learning cellular and molecular biologic techniques relevant to their orthopaedic research projects.
Bioengineering graduate student Steve Thomopoulos spent three months at Genetics Institute in the fall of 1999. Says Steve: "Until recently, there have been few possibilities for students to experience the workspace of the biotechnology industry. Consequently, students graduated from the bioengineering program with an understanding of the academic job market, but without a sense of the corporate job market. The program provided me the opportunity to experience the lifestyle of a corporate laboratory and learn techniques that were unavailable to me in my current academic laboratory. The program fully integrated me as a member of the company, immersing me in the working environment of a biotechnology research laboratory."
To learn more about the McKay Orthopaedic Research Laboratory, please visit http://www.med.upenn.edu/orl/".
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