All Bioengineering graduate students must take the two required courses of the program: BIOE 210 Advanced Bio-Thermodynamics, Bio-Kinetics and Bio-Transport, and BIOE 215 Biological Imaging and Spectroscopy; and BIOE 291 (Bioengineering Seminar Series). No other courses are uniformly required for all Bioengineering graduate students. Students should work with their advisors to determine which additional courses are best suited for their research areas and to satisfy the total unit requirements for the relevant degree: Master or Ph.D. Course selection should be discussed with advisors each year at the annual review meeting. This may include any letter-graded graduate level elective BIOE course (200 or higher) as well as graduate level courses in other areas with the consent of the advisor.
Normally these courses should be taken during the first two years of graduate study. Requirements for formal course work beyond the minimum are flexible and are determined by the individual student’s background and research topic in consultation with the student’s graduate research advisor.
REQUIRED COURSES
BIOE 210 Advanced Bio-Thermodynamics, Bio-Kinetics and Bio-Transport (4)
A graduate level course specifically designed for emerging engineering disciplines that deal with living systems, the course will focus on thermodynamic aspects, kinetics and transport within living and biochemical systems. This course aims to provide theoretical and conceptual principles underlying biomolecular and biological systems. The course will start with basic and advanced concepts in physical chemistry, mechanics, reaction engineering and thermodynamics and introduce statistical mechanics as a tool to understand biomolecular interactions. The applications will be of relevance to bioengineering and biology disciplines. The course will not shy away from mathematical formulations and will stress the molecular perspective. The first part of the course will deal with the first, second and third laws of thermodynamics and focusing on the concepts of Gibbs Free energy, entropy in active systems as well as the notion of temperature and pressure. The second part of the course will deal with chemical reactions, adhesion, diffusional transport and convective transport in these systems – both at the intra-cellular level as well as at the level of organelles and organs. Specifically, momentum transport (viscous flow) and chemical species transport (convection and diffusion) in living systems will be analyzed with a view to develop mathematical and conceptual descriptions of physiological systems, bio-inspired engineered systems and drug delivery. This course will be of value to students interested in bioengineering, biophysics, biomechanics, mathematical modeling, and biochemistry.
BIOE 215 Biological Imaging and Spectroscopy (4)
This course has been designed to introduce fundamental principles of imaging and spectroscopy of biological systems, including biomolecules, cells, tissue and organisms. The general principles of biological imaging and spectroscopy to be discussed include electromagnetic wave spectrum, optical photon generation, optical photon propagation inside tissue, x-ray photon generation, x-ray photon interaction inside objects. The course will also discuss a variety of imaging methods including optical microscopy, electron microscopy, x-ray imaging, emission tomography, single photon emission computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging; and a variety of spectroscopy techniques including optical and fluorescence spectroscopy of biomolecules, single molecule detection, x-ray and neutron diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, x-ray and neutron diffraction. Image analysis includes principles of digital image formation, random processes, Gaussian processes, matrices, and hypothesis testing.
BIOE 291 Bioengineering Seminar Series (1)
Seminar series where external speakers deliver one-hour talks on current research and development in various bioengineering fields relevant to the research carried out in the graduate program, including but not limited to cell and molecular biophysics, synthetic cell and molecular biology, biological imaging and spectroscopy, and biological modeling and simulation.
