IGERT: Integrated Training Program in Biomechanics

这个IGERT项目是一个以生物力学为重点的多学科教育和研究项目。生物力学是对生物现象的研究，广泛涉及细胞、组织和器官的力学特性。它涉及结构方面——例如，细胞骨架的强度和细胞的杨氏模量——和动力学方面——生物微通道中流体的运动和生物微电机的作用。理解这些现象和过程需要结合生物和物理科学以及工程学的研究方法、工具和风格。IGERT计划旨在为博士生提供一种教育，旨在使他们精通生物和物理科学的方法。该计划的研究部分将提高对重要和相对未开发的生物过程的理解；它也将利用这种理解来设计模仿生物系统的无生命系统（仿生系统）。教育部分将结合论文课程，要求生物、物理科学和工程领域的联合顾问，通过不同研究风格的实验室进行研究轮转，以及不同背景的学生之间的积极互动。该项目每年将资助10名学生，涉及哈佛大学生物系、化学系、物理系、应用科学与工程系和医学院的20名教师。这些研究小组中的许多人已经在其他项目中合作：拟议的项目将加强和扩展这些合作，使学生和教师都受益。IGERT是一项nsf范围内的计划，旨在满足培养具有多学科背景和技术，专业和个人技能的美国博士科学家和工程师的挑战，以满足未来职业需求。该计划旨在通过建立创新的研究生教育和培训模式，在一个超越传统学科界限的合作研究的肥沃环境中，促进研究生教育的文化变革。在该计划的第五年，奖项将颁发给21个机构，这些机构的项目共同跨越了NSF支持的科学和工程领域。

This IGERT project is a multidisciplinary program of education and research focused on biomechanics. Biomechanics is the study of phenomena in biology that is broadly concerned with the mechanical characteristics of cells, tissues, and organs. It deals with both structural aspects - for example, the strength of the cytoskeleton and the Young's modulus of the cell - and dynamic aspects - the motion of fluids in biological microchannels and the action of biological micromotors. Understanding these phenomena and processes requires combining methods, tools, and styles of research from biological and physical sciences, and from engineering. The IGERT program is intended to offer Ph.D. students an education designed to make them proficient in the methods of both biological and physical sciences. The research component of the program will generate improved understanding of important and relatively unexplored biological processes; it will also use this understanding to design inanimate systems that mimic aspects of the biological systems (biomimetic systems). The educational component will combine thesis programs that require co-advisors from biological and physical science and engineering, research rotations through laboratories with different styles of research, and active interaction among students with different backgrounds. The program will support 10 students per year, and involve 20 faculty at Harvard in the departments of biology, chemistry, and physics, the Division of Applied Science and Engineering, and the Medical School. Many of these research groups already collaborate in other projects: the proposed program will strengthen and extend these collaborations, to the benefit of both students and faculty. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the multidisciplinary backgrounds and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. In the fifth year of the program, awards are being made to twenty-one institutions for programs that collectively span the areas of science and engineering supported by NSF.