IGERT: Neuroengineering from Cells to Systems

这项综合研究生教育和研究培训（IGERT）奖为莱斯大学的博士生提供神经工程方面的创新培训，涵盖神经科学、电子工程、机械工程和生物工程等学科。在与贝勒医学院和其他七所大学和参与组织的合作下，莱斯大学的学员正在开发工具来理解、连接、建模和操纵神经系统。智力优势：由于改进的技术使神经科学家能够与脑细胞相互作用，并且由于通过电学和光学方法收集的神经科学数据类型越来越多，创建和处理这些复杂数据集的神经工程师需要高度专业化的培训。该课程在三个特定领域培养学生：(1)细胞系统神经工程，研究神经系统？分子和细胞水平上的S信号传导过程；(2)设计多神经元回路，包括从脑细胞群中收集和分析数据，并设计方法来诱导它们产生新的功能反应；(3)转化神经工程，开发系统的方法来改进临床设备，如假肢和深部脑刺激器。这个项目的受训者正在学习技术创新；了解神经工程的社会、文化和伦理方面；将他们的工作有效地传达给各种各样的受众；并了解将他们的发现商业化的途径。更广泛的影响：由于这个项目训练神经工程师开发大脑功能和结构问题的先进解决方案，一个新的基于问题的学习课程将产生，并将通过开放教育资源与公众共享。通过与生物医学设备公司、国际研究人员和德克萨斯州两家少数民族服务机构的合作者建立关系，该项目的学生正在扩大他们的培训应用范围，并增加他们对研究的参与。IGERT是一项nsf范围内的计划，旨在满足教育美国博士科学家和工程师的挑战，他们具有跨学科背景，在所选学科的深厚知识，以及未来职业需求所需的技术，专业和领导技能。该项目旨在建立研究生教育和培训的新模式，在一个超越传统学科界限的合作研究的肥沃环境中，让学生了解研究转化为有益于社会的创新的过程。

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.