2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In recent decades, biomedical engineers have capitalized upon the “molecular revolution” that fundamentally changed the study and understanding of biology through discovery, design, and commercial production of the wide array of molecular and cell-based therapeutics that form the basis and future of modern medical treatment. Advances in tissue engineering, computational protein design, and high-throughput bioanalytical techniques across academia and industry motivate the need to develop curricula that provides opportunities for students to interact and design early in their undergraduate careers.

To meet this need, we have created two new junior level courses: Molecular Engineering (BMEXXX) and Cellular Engineering (BMEXXX) that were offered in the Fall and Spring of 2022, respectively. The backbone of these courses has been the development of student-centered experimental and laboratory exercises that prepare students for authentic research experiences in any industry. Molecular Engineering labs integrate computational and experimental learning outcomes that bridges the in silico to in vitro pipeline of protein engineering. Students combine their “wet” and “dry” lab experiences into a final month-long project to design novel protein fusions or protein affinity binders with the potential to inhibit an aberrantly expressed protein. Cellular Engineering labs prepare students with continuous engagement in aseptic technique, maintenance of mammalian cell cultures, fluorescence microscopy, Western blotting, quantitative real-time PCR, flow cytometry, and examining morphological and cytoskeletal changes in 3D culture models.

Preliminary student feedback from Cellular Engineering and Molecular Engineering labs emphasize the impact of “hands-on lab experiences” that scaffold knowledge with lecture content. Students value that these authentic experiences help to answer “overarching scientific question[s] for most of the labs and we were doing the lab for a purpose.” Course evaluations for Cellular Engineering report a 4.83/5 overall evaluation score, with a 5/5 score for intellectually stimulating content. This WIP will provide course evaluations for Molecular Engineering to be completed in December 2022. The previous success of the Cellular Engineering course and the current success of the Molecular Engineering course has already driven the student demand to heights that we predicted would take several years as we already have 40-50% of our BME undergraduates enrolling in these courses this academic year. Additional questions on integrating these new gateway courses with advanced topics and electives are pending, along with long-term success of the new courses on student engagement in primary research at XXX University, industry connections and career success-these will be evaluated through longitudinal studies with undergraduate alumni, faculty, and industry partners.