Practical Methods in Biofabrication
Biofabrication is an emerging field of research with the aim to address important challenges in medicine and health care with direct clinically translational applications. It is an immediate result of the convergence of sciences and involves methods of several disciplines from originally distinct fields, such as biology, medicine, engineering, physics and materials science. In this course, the students work on a self-selected challenging and interdisciplinary medical problem, where independence and critical examination of their project goals, methods and results are fostered. In the first half of the semester, they are exposed to different key technologies. Parallel to that, the students begin to formulate a self-defined project topic with support of an expert team.
Keywords
Course description
Project description
The course is an immersive experience for students of different departments and is for most of the students their first wet lab experience and the first time working on a topic where the solution is unknown.
The students learn the theoretical background of CAD design, biomedical implant design using industry-standard software, polymer-based biofabrication techniques, electrospinning, microfluidic assembly, and bioprinting and spend 1-2 afternoons applying this knowledge in structured laboratory exercises. The students perform moodle-based entry tests prior to the lab and submit homeworks to test their acquired knowledge.
They define their own problem-based project using one of the acquired methods or combinations thereof. They provide a Version 1 of the protocol, which is given detailed feedback. The students take full responsibility to assure the required equipment and materials are available, which allows them to carry out their protocol according to a pre-defined timeline. Once their Version 2 of the protocol is approved, they start on the execution of the project. This often includes experiences of failure, followed by thorough trouble shooting — which in turn serves as an extremely valuable learning experience.
The students present their results in form of a video where they practice multimedia communication skills and the ability to synthesize and condense their project into a coherent 5 min presentation.
The experience with this course has been incredibly rewarding, for the students, but also for the staff who have worked tirelessly to help realize the student’s initiatives. Particularly rewarding is that many of the students come with initial self-doubts and low confidence about their ability to pull off their project, and every student has finished up with very successful project presentation, even when the execution did not completely work out to their expectations. The course emphasizes the process of learning, revising and critical reflection and not final outcome, though in a few cases the students have come up with completely novel, and publishable findings. They learn the importance of persistence, organization and creativity in a realistic, real-world research setting.
Contact information
Contact
Gewebetechnol. und Biofabrikation
Otto-Stern-Weg 7
8093
Zürich
Switzerland
Contact
Rochester Institute of Technology
Department of Biomedical Engineering
160 Lomb Memorial Drive
Institute Hall/Bldg. 73, Room 3109
14623
Rochester, NY
USA
