IGERT: Neuroengineering from Cells to Systems

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This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award provides Ph.D. students at Rice University with innovative training in neuroengineering, spanning the disciplines of neuroscience, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and bioengineering. In collaboration with Baylor College of Medicine and seven other universities and participating organizations, Rice University trainees are developing the tools to understand, interface with, model, and manipulate the nervous system.Intellectual Merit: Due to improved technologies that enable neuroscientists to interact with brain cells, and due to the increasing types of neuroscientific data collected through electrical and optical methods, the neuroengineers who create and work with these complex data sets require highly specialized training. This program trains students in three specific areas: (1) cellular systems neuroengineering, which studies the nervous system?s signaling processes at the molecular and cellular levels; (2) engineering multi-neuron circuits, which involves collecting and analyzing data from groups of brain cells and devising methods to induce them to produce new functional responses; and (3) translational neuroengineering, which develops systematic approaches to improve clinical devices such as prosthetics and deep brain stimulators. Trainees in this program are learning to be technologically innovative; to be aware of social, cultural, and ethical aspects of neuroengineering; to communicate their work effectively to a wide variety of audiences; and to understand the pathways to commercialize their discoveries.Broader Impacts: As this program trains neuroengineers to develop advanced solutions to functional and structural problems in the brain, a new problem-based learning curriculum will result and will be shared with the public through open education resources. By cultivating relationships with biomedical device companies, international researchers, and collaborators within two minority-serving institutions in Texas, students in this program are expanding the applications of their training and increasing participation in their research.IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and leadership skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to establish new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries, and to engage students in understanding the processes by which research is translated into innovations that benefit society.