Undergraduate Curriculum in Biomedical Engineering
General Philosophy
The past twenty years have witnessed the maturing of biomedical engineering as an independent engineering discipline. While the older engineering disciplines are grounded in mathematics, physics and chemistry, biomedical engineering adds fundamental biology to its list of basic science roots. For example chemical engineering curricula, which originated in the second half of the 19 th century, have integrated physics, chemistry and mathematics into the intellectual framework needed to solve practical problems in the chemical industries. The task faced by biomedical engineering faculty for the past twenty five plus years has been to integrate the emerging principles of modern biology with the other basic sciences into a coherent framework for solving fundamental and applied problems in biology and medicine. Because the job of integrating the so-called hard sciences into traditional engineering disciplines had been accomplished, the task of the biomedical engineering community reduced to integrating biology with the traditional engineering fields.
There have been at least three distinguishable approaches to integrating biology with engineering to form biomedical engineering curricula.
- In some programs students have been required to take courses covering most, if not all, of the traditional engineering disciplines complemented by courses which attempt to teach the application of these engineering skills to biomedical problems. This approach has the disadvantage of giving the student breadth in engineering at the expense of depth. One result has been that industry has preferred to hire traditionally educated engineers who they believe have the depth to solve practical engineering problems.
- A variation on this first approach has been to have students take courses that cover the skill sets from many traditional engineering disciplines but in which the examples and homework problems emphasize the applications to biology and medicine. Typically such programs require a heavy teaching load on the biomedical engineering faculty who must teach many of the fundamental courses.
- A very different approach emphasizes the need for in-depth education in at least one traditional engineering discipline. The student chooses to concentrate in one from among a variety of disciplines available at his/her institution. In this instance it is the responsibility of the bioengineering faculty to insure that the courses in each concentration form a coherent package, which is consistent with biomedical applications. To some extent this approach sacrifices breadth in engineering for depth in a single discipline. Typically the fundamental engineering courses in the field of concentration are taught by faculty from the department representing the field and are supplemented by advanced biomedical engineering courses focusing on biomedical applications of the engineering fundamentals.
Since 1980, we have offered a very successful undergraduate program based on the third approach, which encourages students to concentrate in one of the traditional engineering disciplines. Briefly, to achieve a “concentration area” notation on the transcript, a student is required to take at least 21 intermediate and advanced credits (seven courses) in one of the traditional engineering disciplines. This requirement is such that when combined with the required introductory engineering courses and relevant biomedical engineering courses, many students are able to obtain dual degrees in biomedical engineering and in the concentration discipline. This depth in a traditional engineering discipline has been attractive to industrial employers. Nonetheless, over the past several years, we have begun to realize that our program could be significantly improved by moving the emphasis from the concentrations in traditional engineering to focus on broadly defined areas in biomedical engineering. Several factors have led us to develop the new curriculum presented here.
- The evolution of biomedical engineering as a discipline in and of itself has allowed us to define a set of “core knowledge” that every graduate of our program should possess. Our new curriculum begins with a “Biomedical Engineering Core” required of all students, which provides this core knowledge.
- By organizing the students’ choices of advanced engineering courses around biomedical engineering focus areas rather than traditional engineering disciplines, we can ensure both the depth of engineering education and the relevance to biological and medical problem solving.
- Because curriculum development and maintenance for each focus area will be the responsibility of faculty members with research interests appropriate to the area, all faculty members will be active participants in shaping the undergraduate curriculum.
- Finally, although graduates of our program have been known for their strong backgrounds in systems physiology, we believe that we should require them to become better educated in other “modern biology” areas such as genetics or developmental biology.
Core Knowledge
We consider the following to be areas of knowledge that must be part of the education of graduates of our program. Although it is unlikely that any student will become truly expert in all of the areas, we believe that their undergraduate education should make all of the areas accessible to the student in the sense that after graduation from our program they will be able to understand and interpret the literature in any area of biomedical engineering intelligently and when necessary to continue to educate themselves in any area of the core.
- Molecular and cellular biology
- Engineering analysis of systems level biology and physiology
- Creating, analyzing and simulating a linear or non-linear system model from knowledge of the real biological system
- Analysis of systems described by linear and non-linear ordinary differential equations
- Analysis of biological control systems
- Fundamental thermodynamic principles in biology
The Biomedical Engineering Core
This set of core knowledge leads us to the following biomedical engineering core curriculum:
580.221: BME Molecular and Cellular Biology
580.223: Biological Models and Simulations
580.224: Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics for BME
580.421: Systems Bioengineering I with lab – Cells and Cardiovascular Systems
580.422: Systems Bioengineering II with lab – Neural Systems
580.425: Systems Bioengineering III – Genes to Cells
580.222: Biological Systems and Control
Biomedical Engineering Focus Areas
Building on the foundation of this core curriculum, each student is required to take a cohesive sequence of advanced engineering courses and at least one modern biology course, all appropriate to one of four Biomedical Engineering Focus Areas. A student’s choice of Focus Area is made before the start of the junior year and is based on their experience with the Biomedical Engineering Core and their answers to the questions given below:
Biological Systems Engineering – “Do you want to focus on understanding at a fundamental level how biological systems work?”
Sensors, Micro/Nano Systems, and Instrumentation – “Do you want to build things that facilitate research or clinical medicine?”
Cell and Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials – “Do you want to create replacement cells, tissues and organs?
Computational Bioengineering – “Do you want to focus on the use of mathematical theory or computers to solve very complex biological and medical problems?”
Advanced Engineering Sequences
Students are required to take at least 27 credits (nine courses) of advanced engineering appropriate to their focus area and to their specific interests within the area.
Focus Area Core: The student must take two from a selection of courses (six credits) prescribed by the focus area faculty as being fundamental to the focus area. One or both of these may be required of all students in the focus area. For example Dynamical Systems may be required of all biological systems focus area students, while students may choose a second course from among stochastic processes, information theory, or a number of similar courses.
Engineering Emphasis Sequence: The student must take 21 additional credits (seven courses) of advanced engineering electives, of which nine credits are in biomedical engineering courses and 12 are in other departments.
The courses from other departments are chosen from among a number of cohesive sequences suggested by the faculty or by the student with the approval of the advisor. For example, in the biological systems focus area, sequences might be defined that educate the student in areas such as signal processing, software engineering, hardware engineering and others. The principle here is that the student should obtain depth in some area of engineering appropriate to his/her interests. While we provide examples of such sequences, these are only a starting point for consideration by students and advisors.
The advanced biomedical engineering courses are chosen according to the student’s interests in biomedical engineering problems. These courses require that the student integrate the core knowledge gained in the biomedical engineering core and in the engineering emphasis sequences to solve biomedical problems, and thus they form a “capstone” intellectual experience for the student. For example, a student interested in neuroscience problems might choose Theoretical Neuroscience, Models of the Neuron, and Biomechanics and Motor Control.
Modern Biology Electives
The student must choose at least one course appropriate to his/her interests and approved by the advisor. For example, a student interested in neuroscience might take Development Biology and/or Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience.
Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Humanities Requirements
Physics – 10 credits; Chemistry – 12 credits; Math – 24 credits; Humanities and Social Science – 18 credits.
|
