Development of a comprehensive biodesign curriculum to promote biomedical innovation

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Project Summary The R25 grant will help to solidify the curricular pathway to our undergraduate team- based biomedical engineering (BME) capstone design courses, and promote student biodesign skill development during each of the four years of undergraduate education. The specific aim of this proposal is to provide undergraduate BME students at Stony Brook University with: 1) Early exposure to biodesign concepts; 2) Continuous training and enforcement in design skill development; 3) Direct mentorship from clinical and industry mentors, in addition to BME faculty mentors; 4) Clinical immersion to understand, identify and screen healthcare needs; 5) Enhanced clinical needs-driven biodesign experience; and 6) A channel to refine and commercialize promising design products. Biodesign will start in the freshman year, when concepts of biodesign will be introduced through BME100 (Introduction to BME). In the sophomore year, BME240 (Emergent Biodesign I, fall semester) and BME241 (Emergent Biodesign II, spring semester) will be added to the curriculum. Seminars and workshops on various biodesign topics will be covered, and students will work on team-based design projects. In the junior year, two more new courses, BME340 (Clinical interaction, fall semester) and BME341 (Biodesign rotation, spring semester), will be added to the curriculum. In these two courses, BME students will work with School of Medicine students/faculty on medical innovation, and then present their innovation ideas to an audience that includes engineers, clinicians and industry mentors. A selected number of students will participate in a 6-week clinical immersion program, to generate a list of clinical needs based on their own clinical observations. In the senior year, these clinical needs will be presented to all the senior students in BME Capstone design class (BME440/441). Student teams will select a clinical need to focus on as their senior design project. Design products with commercialization potentials will be carried on to the 5th-year biotechnology master’s program of BME, and thorough business plans will be developed. Strong mentorship support will be provided by mentors from BME, School of Medicine, School of Nursing, and Center for Biotechnology, as well as industry partners. The proposed educational plan will enable a productive biodesign process that initiates from real clinical needs. It will also provide students with enhanced biodesign experience, encourage biomedical innovation, and help the innovation products to reach commercialization.