Tag: industry

UC Bioengineering

Over the last couple of days I have been to UC Berkeley, UCLA and USC, three University of California campus, and I think that the diversity within one state encapsulates the heterogeneous bioengineering landscape I have observed on my US tour.

At UC Berkeley they look more broadly at bioengineering, with particular expertise in synthetic biology, systems biology. The Department was founded in 1998 and is the youngest Department in engineering. UC Berkeley doesn’t have a medical school so they utilise the UC San Francisco medical school for clinical/engineering collaborations, biomedical engineering research at PhD level and through the translational medicine masters program.

At UCLA their focus is more molecular and mechanistic based, but research spans all scales. The Departments developed in more of a grass roots approach compared to other institutions I have visited with faculty brought in to build breadth of expertise, for example Professor Daniel Kamei who I met with has a chemical engineering background. The Department was formed in 2002, with the undergraduate major beginning in 2004.

Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California began in 1963 initially as a PhD option (in Systems Physiology) within the Electrical Engineering Department. The undergraduate major in biomedical engineering was initiated in 1974 and the Department was established in 1976 making it one of the first Departments of Bioengineering.

What was evident across these three institutions was that the research themes and the Departments definition of bioengineering change over time, depending on the faculty involved and their focus.

UC Berkeley had some useful concentric circle diagrams to illustrate the interplay between the research themes, and the academics working between or within research themes.

A benefit of the location of these institutions in California is the array of bioengineering industry that they have on their door step, this is not a coincidence, with faculty at all three institutions involved in start-ups and Silicon Valley close by. Industry is a key market for all of these universities, with students typically going into industry, graduate studies (such as medicine) or research.

From building links with industry to links with the community. University of California have taken an interesting approach to the latter through the creation of the Onward California website, which highlights the real-life applications of research by academics at University of California insitutions.

What was also great to hear at UCLA was that Professor Daniel Kamei, who grew up in Los Angeles continues to go back to his elementary and high schools to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. This close association with the community is really important as it makes the person a much more accessible role model. This is a form of outreach I would particularly encourage undergraduate and graduate students to do.

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While I was at USC I had the opportunity to explore the Medical Device Development Facility. A workshop for medical device invention and innovation created by Professor Jerry Loeb in 1999. Professor Loeb had a different take on bioengineering to many others that I spoke to, having come from a medical background. To him engineering is applied physiology with the aim of creating treatments for disease. He also highlighted the importance of defining the distinction between engineering and science, something I equally feel strongly about. He expanded to discuss that to him the difference between biomedical engineering and biological engineering is that the former uses science for engineering and the latter uses engineering for science.

This reminded me of a quote I often use in presentations to illustrate the difference between engineering and science.

“Engineering is the use of technical and scientific knowledge for the benefit of humanity. Scientists study the world as it is; engineers create the world that has never been.” – Theodore von Kármán

‘Til next post
Jenna

Innovation, invention, industry and impact

Day 2 was the tale of the four I’s innovation, invention, industry and impact.
All words we are aware of in the UK but the people I met at Northeastern University and MIT today are doing things a little bit differently.

From a bioengineering perspective I have already realised that it is a very heterogeneous landscape here in the USA. MIT have their very specific approach BU theres and Northeastern a different approach again.

Northeastern’s Department of Bioengineering was officially founded in January 2014, that’s not a typo that really was last month. Previously there has been, as in other institutions a lot of biomedical engineering research undertaken in different engineering Departments. When considering what ‘bioengineering’ is to Northeastern it is still an evolving entity, but what is special about Northeastern is their co-op and educational outreach programmes.

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Their co-op programme is a 5 year undergraduate degree which involves three 6-month placements in industry. In total the students leave the programme with 18-months of work experience alongside their degree. Through these placements the students have the opportunity to experience different industries or to specialise in one discipline.

This system works well for Northeastern as it is a cross-University programme, they have the people and resources to support it and their location in Boston, surrounded by a number of big companies who can host students in this way. What will be interesting as the bioengineering undergraduate course develops will be how the biomedical engineers compete with the mechanical engineers and the electrical engineers who have, in the absence of biomedical engineers in the co-op scheme, been doing placements in orthopaedic companies, prosthetics, medical devices, etc.

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The key points I got from my meeting with Claire Duggan from the Centre for STEM education were that there are a lot of similarities in the UK and US systems regarding the presence of ‘outreach’ in research grants. Students, both undergraduate and postgraduate are great ambassadors and role models for high school students, students when given freedom and support to create new outreach activities can be really creative. STEM outreach in the US is a crowded party that everyone wants to be at, the Centre for STEM education’s approach is through a series of programmes as a framework of delivery. For any HE pathway to impact fanatics reading this you’ll also be pleased to hear that the US have the Broader Impacts programme that is spreading through US Universities at the moment.

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I also met with inventor and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Michael Cima while at MIT. Professor Cima is based in the innovative cancer engineering centre at MIT, known as the Koch Institute. Aside from leading research in the cancer engineering field, for the past 6 years Professor Cima has also been the Faculty Director of the Lemelson-MIT programme. He had a clear passion for encouraging invention or the inventors mind set in young people. The programme of activities run as part of the Lemelson MIT programme has grown over time with Inventeens, inventeams and a number of notable awards. I was interested in Professor Cima’s description about the importance of role model inventors for young people to aspire to be like, when they grow up, and how involvement in the programme doesn’t just give students the practical hands on inventing skills and outlook, but also role models at a number of levels to inspire them.

I will finish of this blog with some wise words from Professor Cima about, in his view the three things that make a great inventor/ innovator:
– curiosity: collecting solutions to problems they haven’t encountered yet
– empathy: uncanny ability to see problem from the users eyes.
– leadership: no one person has all the solutions, they have the ability to recruit the right people with the right skills to solve those problems.

‘Til next post
Jenna