Biomedical Engineering

Student led special topic courses which vary by semester

Provides students with the skills necessary to engage in meaningful engineering design, and focuses on the latter stages of the engineering design process - detailed design, prototyping, and evaluation. Students develop skills in computer assisted design, embedded controls, prototyping, analysis and teamwork. A major focus of the class is the execution of a design project. Prerequisites: PHYS 1425, and BME major or minor. Recommended Corequisite: PHYS 2415 or ECE 2200.

You will learn how excitable tissue, nerves and muscle, and the cardiovascular and respiratory systems function. You will develop an understanding of mechanisms, with an introduction to structure, an emphasis on quantitative analysis, and integration of hormonal and neural regulation and control. Prerequisites: (PHYS 1425 or PHYS 1420 or PHYS 1710) AND (APMA 1110 or MATH 1320) AND (CHEM 1410 or CHEM 1610 or CHEM 1810) AND BME Major or Minor

Introduces the physiology of the kidney, salt and water balance, gastrointestinal system, endocrine system, and central nervous system, with reference to diseases and their pathophysiology. Prerequisite: (CHEM 1410 or CHEM 1610 or CHEM 1810) AND (PHYS 1425 or PHYS 1420 or PHYS 1710) AND BME 2101, or instructor permission.

Intro to fundamentals of cell structure and function, emphasizing the techniques and technologies available for the study of cell biology. Content includes cell structure and function; energy flow in cells; information flow in cells focuses on modern molecular biology and genetic engineering, and includes DNA replication, the cell cycle, gene expression, gene regulation, and protein synthesis. Prerequisite: CHEM 1410 or CHEM 1610 or CHEM 1810 or instructor permission.

Introduces principles of continuum mechanics of biological tissues & systems. 1) Review results used in biomechanics field, 2) properties of living tissue; 3) mechanical basis & effects of pathology & trauma: 4) intro to mechanotransduction, circulatory transport, growth & remodeling & tissue-engineered materials; 5) low Reynolds number flows in vivo & microsystems. Prerequisites: APMA 2120 or MATH 2310 or MATH 2315 and BME Major or Minor

Discover how computation drives innovation in human health. Learn programming, numerical methods & AI tools to analyze and model real biomedical data. Work in teams to generate solutions for Alzheimer¿s disease, cancer, lung disease & infectious disease while developing communication & project management skills. Gain practical, employable computational tools used across biotech, pharma, research & medicine. Prereq: CS 111X. Co-reqs: APMA 2120 or MATH 2310/2315 or instructor permission.

Project-driven course focusing on biomedical product design with emphasis on marketability, innovation, entrepreneurship and business. Topics include design fundamentals, problem/needs identification, delineation of realistic constraints and product specifications, intellectual property, market analysis, entrepreneurship, specific advanced design, business plan development, venture funding, and medical product testing methods. Pre-requisite: BME 2000 or instructor permission.

The focus for the course will be establishing a regulatory mindset for students to engage with the Food & Drug Administration, primarily the Center for Medical Devices and Radiological Health. The material covered throughout the semester is presented in a series of lectures, design prompts, exercises, workshops, and reviews. Students will develop their own project(s) and work as individuals and in small groups/teams. Prereq: BME 2000 and BME 2101

A year-long integrative course to formulate and solve problems in biomedical systems, including experimental design, performance and analysis. Testing in tissues/cells & manipulation of molecular constituents to determine structural and functional characteristics for design of therapeutic or measurement systems. Methods incl biochemical, physiological, cell biology, mechanical, electrical and computer, systems, chemical, imaging, and other approaches. Prereq: 3rd & 4th Year BME 

Second part of a year-long course integrating concepts and skills from prior courses to formulate and solve problems in biomedical systems, including experimental design, performance and analysis. Prerequisite: 3rd Year standing in BME major, or instructor permission

Introduces principles and application of fluid and mass transport processes in cell, tissue and organ systems. Topics include intro to physiological fluid mechanics in the circulation and tissue, fundamentals of mass transport in biological systems, effects of mass transport and biochemical interactions at the cell and tissue scales and fluid and mass transport in organs. Prerequisites: APMA 2130 or MATH 3250, or APMA 2501 - Differential Equations & Linear Algebra, and BME 2101, and BME 2104, or instructor permission.

Presents analytical tools used to model signals & linear systems. BME examples include multicompartment modeling of drug delivery, modeling of dynamic biomechanical systems & electrical circuit models of excitable cells. Topics: signals & systems, convolution, continuous time Fourier transforms, electrical circuits & applications of linear system theory. Prerequisite: PHYS 2415 & APMA 2130, & CS 1110 or equivalent

An introductory course to neural networks research, specifically biologically-based networks that reproduce cognitive phenomena. The goal of this course is to teach the basic thinking and methodologies used in constructing and understanding neural-like networks. Cross-listed as NESC 5330. 3rd or 4th year standing; or permission of the instructor.

A year-long design project required for BME majors. Students select, formulate, and solve a design problem related to a device or a system. Projects use conceptual design, skills obtained in the integrated lab and substantial literature and patent reviews. Projects are sponsored by faculty, physicians and/or companies. Students may work on their own with outside team members when appropriate or with other students in integrative teams. Prerequisite: 4th year standing in the Biomedical Engineering major or instructor permission.

Second half of a year-long design project required for BME majors. Students select, formulate, & solve a design problem related to a device or a system. Projects use conceptual design, skills obtained in the integrated lab & substantial literature and patent reviews. Projects are sponsored by faculty, physicians and/or companies. Students may work on their own with outside team members when appropriate or with other students in integrative teams. Prerequisite: 4th year standing in the Biomedical Engineering major or instructor permission.

Focuses on the study of forces (and their effects) that act on the musculoskeletal structures of the human body. Based on the foundations of functional anatomy and engineering mechanics (rigid body and deformable approaches); students are exposed to clinical problems in orthopedics and rehabilitation. Prerequisite: BME 2101 & BME 2220, or instructor permission.

How does a single fertilized egg grow and divide into every cell in the body, from branching neurons to beating cardiomyocytes and everything in between? Can we harness this knowledge to better understand disease, and to produce therapeutically relevant cell types, tissues, and organs? You will explore what controls stem cell differentiation using hands-on experiments, with emphasis on methods to engineer cell fate for regenerative medicine. Prerequisite: BME 2104

This course introduces techniques for constructing mathematical and computational models of biological processes. We utilize experimental data to validate those models at many levels of organizational scale -- from genome to whole-tissue. Prerequisites: APMA 2130 or MATH 3250, BME 2101, BME 2104, and BME 2315.

Introduces genomics and bioinformatics theory and tools to analyze large scale biological data. Specific topics covered are Introduction to Linux and R statistical programming language, computations on the high-performance computational cluster, analysis of sequencing data with applications in gene expression and protein/DNA interactions, differential expression analysis, pathway and co-expression network analysis. Prereq: (APMA 3110 or APMA 3100 or MATH 3100) and (CS 1110 or CS 1111 or CS 1112 with grade of C- or better or successfully completed CS 1110 place-out test) and BME major or minor

Intro to systems-level measurement techniques for capturing molecular information and the mathematical and computational methods for harnessing the information from these measurements to improve our understanding of cell physiology and disease. Practical implementation of the concepts in MATLAB or Python will be applied to existing, real data from published journal articles. Pre-requisites: APMA 3100 or APMA 3110, BME 2104, BME 2315, and CS 1110 or CS 1111 or CS 1112

This course will provide students with a quantitative framework for identifying and addressing important biological questions at the molecular, cell, and tissue levels. The course will focus on the interplay between methods and logic, with an emphasis on the themes that emerge repeatedly in quantitative experiments.

"We will explore engineering methods to use ""microbes as tools"" for human wellbeing, to understand and combat ""microbes as enemies"" in infectious disease, and to characterize and manipulate ""microbes as partners"" in human health and wellbeing. We will learn how facets of BME are used to test hypotheses of human/microbe relationships and to design strategies to understand and treat disease and improve human wellbeing. Prerequisites: BME 2000 AND (BME 2101 OR BME 2102) AND BME 2104 AND BME 2315"

We will learn to bridge the gap between the fields of bioengineering and the science of how drugs interact with biological systems, i.e., Pharmacology, including the principles of biochemical reaction kinetics and engineering; how such principles can help us describe, model, predict and modulate the outcome of biochemical reactions in cells and biological reactors, and apply these principles to the understanding of pharmacological phenomena. Prerequisites: BME 2104 AND APMA 2130

Introduces biomaterials science and biological interactions with materials with overview of biomaterials testing (in vitro and in vivo) and characterization. Emphasis on emerging novel strategies and design of biomaterials. Areas of concentration include polymers and ceramics in biomaterials, drug delivery, tissue engineering (orthopaedic and vascular) and nanotechnology. Prerequisite: BME 2101, BME 2104, or instructor permission.