Research in BES

Catalog description

Program Director: Bruce Klitzman, PhD. This interdepartmental study program is designed to provide third year students with an opportunity to perform laboratory-based research in the broad areas of surgery, engineering, regenerative medicine, and orthopaedics. Students interested in orthopedic surgery must also contact Dr. Will Eward to express interest. Research in this study program can be either basic science or clinically focused. The program is designed to provide research opportunities to students interested in the quantitative understanding and innovations in the fields of surgery, engineering, and orthopaedics. It can also encompass research into the physiology of cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, and whole animals or people, populations, as well as the efficacy of various therapies. Program mentors have laboratories that investigate these areas at the molecular, microscopic, and macroscopic levels as well as clinical research. They utilize whole animal, organ, cellular, and molecular models or in vitro simulation of disease states. The development and employment of new instrumentation may be a component of the research effort, as well as the use of versatile cell-based therapies such as adult stem cells. Emphasis in the student experience is placed upon the teaching of the quantitative method of understanding biological systems. The student is expected to learn to formulate hypotheses, to develop appropriate methods to test such hypotheses and to use statistical methods to draw conclusions form their data. Each student selects a faculty mento in consultation with the study program director and an individual research plan is developed. Students who wish to enter this program are not required or expected to have any engineering background. Students interested in Orthopaedics should contact Dr. Eward.