University of NewMexico/Harvard PREM: Leadership in Biomaterials

新墨西哥大学/哈佛大学PREM：生物材料领域的领导者我们在哈佛大学材料研究科学与工程中心（MRSEC）、新墨西哥大学（UNM）、西南印度理工学院（SIPI）和阿尔伯克基公立学校（APS）之间建立了研究和教育合作伙伴关系。该项目由美国国家科学基金材料研究与教育合作伙伴计划（PREM）资助，将重点关注材料技术的一个有前途的多学科领域：生物材料，即用于医疗设备或与生物系统接触的材料（合成和天然；固体和有时液体）。虽然生物材料代表了我们医疗保健系统中巨大且快速增长的经济组成部分（全球每年估计超过1000亿美元），但它们也为来自代表性不足群体的学生提供了增加材料研究职业相关性的重要背景。我们致力于这个前提，并制定了一个计划，为少数民族社区提供与现实世界问题的逻辑研究联系。这种联系将使我们能够有效地利用生物材料技术来激励来自代表性不足群体的学生从事研究事业。该伙伴关系将整合与当地教育机构的联盟，重点关注少数民族学生的教育和培训、教师教育、团队研究和各级专业发展，以实现实质性的机构和基础设施发展。这种系统的方法将在短期内通过实现PREM的目标产生巨大的影响，同时保证NSF在新墨西哥州以积极的、多方面的生物材料教育和研究项目的形式投资的持久遗产。组成子项目将侧重于开发新材料技术，用于在少数民族人群中特别成问题的三个医学领域：传染病（廉价的检测和诊断）、心血管疾病（小直径血管移植和心脏瓣膜的组织工程方法）和癌症（成本效益高、个性化、用于诊断和预后的基因组测序）。在每个研究项目中，将组建多学科、多机构的团队，在充分利用哈佛大学和新墨西哥大学最先进的设施的同时，最大限度地发挥研究和培训工作的协同作用。该项目将通过与少数族裔人口较多的城市学区APS、以科学、技术、工程和数学教育为重点的部落学院SIPI、西班牙裔服务研究型大学新墨西哥大学和哈佛大学合作，对少数族裔学生的教育产生直接影响。我们将与一些以少数民族为重点的科学和工程组织密切合作，促进与美国科学院的外展活动，并从新墨西哥大学、SIPI和美国科学院招募有才华的学生参加我们的研究项目。与哈佛大学的合作提供了重要的专业知识和设备，以促进新墨西哥州的生物材料研究和教育发展。学生将从与哈佛大学的合作中受益，获得团队研究经验、新课程、研究专业人员网络、专业发展资源和社区拓展经验。这种活动组合将特别适合于鼓励我们的学生争取最高水平的研究和教育事业，特别是在学术界。我们将积极推动材料研究和教育作为一个重要和相关的新兴职业领域，并将跟踪最终将研究和教育作为职业选择的学生人数。至关重要的是，该项目通过支持新墨西哥大学几位新教师的职业发展，将使我们能够将生物材料研究和教育制度化，成为新墨西哥州第一个重要的生物医学工程教育项目的支柱。这个项目的成功不仅将使所有参与的机构受益，而且将有可能在未来许多年里对国家材料科学人力资源的多样性产生积极影响。这一合作伙伴关系将在少数民族材料教育方面建立一个典范传统，是加强新墨西哥州教育研究基础设施的一个合乎逻辑的步骤，同时使我们能够在获得最高水平的国家科学基金会支持方面具有竞争力。

UNM/Harvard PREM: Leadership in BiomaterialsWe have established a research and educational partnership between the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Harvard University, the University of New Mexico (UNM), the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) and the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). This project, funded through the NSFs program on Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) will focus on a promising, multidisciplinary area of materials technology: biomaterials, which are materials (synthetic and natural; solid and sometimes liquid) used in medical devices or in contact with biological systems. While biomaterials represent a huge and rapidly growing economic component of our health care system (estimated at over $100 billion per year worldwide), they also provide an important context for increasing the relevance of materials research careers for students from under-represented groups. We are committed to this premise and have devised a plan for providing logical research connections with real-world issues in minority communities. This connection will allow us to efficiently utilize biomaterials technologies to motivate students from under-represented groups to pursue research careers. The partnership will integrate alliances with local educational institutions, focusing on education and training of minority students, teacher-education, team-based research, and professional development at all levels to result in substantive institutional and infrastructure development. This systematic approach will have an enormous impact by achieving the goals of the PREM in the short term, while guaranteeing an enduring legacy for the NSF investment in the form of an active, multi-faceted, biomaterials education and research program in the state of New Mexico.The component subprojects will be focused on developing new materials technologies for three areas of medicine that are especially problematic in minority populations: infectious diseases (inexpensive detection and diagnosis), cardiovascular diseases (tissue engineering approaches to small diameter vascular grafts and heart valves) and cancer (cost effective, individualized, genomic sequencing for diagnosis and prognosis). In each research project, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional teams will be assembled to synergistically maximize research and training efforts while taking full advantage of the spectrum of state-of-the-art facilities available at Harvard and UNM.This project will have an immediate impact on the education of minority students by partnering APS, an urban school district with a large minority population, SIPI, a tribal college with an emphasis in science, technology, engineering and math education, UNM, a Hispanic Serving Research University, and Harvard University. We will work closely with a number of minority focused science and engineering organizations to both facilitate outreach activities with APS and to recruit talented students from UNM, SIPI and APS to participate in our research projects. Partnering with Harvard provides important access to enabling expertise and equipment to facilitate biomaterials research and education development in New Mexico. Students will benefit from this partnership with Harvard by gaining access to team-based research experiences, new course offerings, networks of research professionals, professional development resources, and community outreach experience. This combination of activities will be particularly well suited for encouraging our students to strive for the highest level of research and educational careers, especially in academia. We will actively promote materials research and education as an important and relevant emergent career field, and will track the number of students that ultimately make research and education their career choices. Critically, this project, by supporting the career development of several new faculty at UNM, will enable us to institutionalize biomaterials research and education as a pillar of the first significant biomedical engineering educational program in the state of New Mexico. Success with this program will not only benefit all of the institutions involved but will have the potential to positively impact the diversity of the nations human resource pool in materials science for many years to come. The partnership will establish an exemplary tradition in minority materials education and is a logical step in enhancing the educational research infrastructure in the state of New Mexico, while allowing us to become competitive for the highest level of NSF support.