Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Research Training in Diabetes

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PROJECT SUMMARY Diabetes is a global heath epidemic affecting close to 400M people worldwide. Even with rigorous management increased risk for diabetic complications remains. Bioengineering approaches are providing innovate technologies that are increasingly overcoming the current limitations in developing new diagnostics, treatments and cures for diabetes and complications. However there is a shortage of a skilled scientific workforce able to work on these developments. The University of Colorado is uniquely placed to develop an innovative new program to train future scientists with the skills and knowledge to solve existing and future problems in diabetes research and clinical care. This includes world-renowned research and clinical programs in diabetes, particularly type1 diabetes; exceptional engineering research and training programs; and bioengineering research and training that is fully integrated with the Medical campus. To maintain the strong and growing areas of cooperation intersecting bioengineering and diabetes research we propose an innovative new training program: Bioengineering Interdisciplinary Training for Diabetes Research. The primary goals of this program are: 1). To attract high-quality trainees with engineering/quantitative backgrounds; 2). To provide in-depth, multi-disciplinary research training for predoctoral trainees integrating bioengineering and diabetes; and 3). To prepare trainees for transition to individual fellowships and research careers in academia or industry. To effectively achieve these goals, our research training will follow 3 core principles: a). That a successful bioengineering career requires an intrinsically multi-disciplinary approach, with scientists equipped with skills covering a broad variety of fields; b). That successful training of these scientists will require constant interactions between trainees and cross- disciplinary mentors at all levels of research; and c). That developing such scientists requires an institutional environment with breadth and depth, established interactions between engineering and clinical science, and faculty committed to this training. Our innovative research training program will combine didactic and hands on coursework, lab-based research, clinical experiences and career skills. Research areas will focus on true strengths at the institution in which established interactions between bioengineering and diabetes are present, including designing biomarkers and therapeutic interventions for diabetes and complication, clinical trials, imaging diagnostics for diabetes and complications, biomaterials and cell-based therapies, and artificial pancreas diabetes management. Our current outcomes achieved in bioengineering training, including for under-represented populations; the depth of expertise in diabetes and engineering research; the significant institutional support, and the wide range of facilities available make a compelling argument to develop such a program at the University of Colorado.