Bioengineering

Creative Inquiry

Creative Inquiry is a university-wide initiative founded on the principle that engaging students in their professors’ research mutually supports the goals of educator and student. Specific research-based undergraduate courses under this initiative span multiple semesters, allowing students and professors to work together on a thesis-driven project.

In the department, several PIs have incorporated this initiative into their undergraduate course offerings as BIOE 451. In fact, under the new undergraduate curriculum for bioengineers, the Creative Inquiry initiative will be incorporated into major coursework.

Current bioengineering Creative Inquiry courses include:

Reengineering Medical Training Simulators
Functional Tissue Engineering of Heart Valves
Clemson University Implant Retrieval Program
MACOBE

For more information about Creative Inquiry, visit http://www.clemson.edu/ci/.
For information on how to become involved in a current course, contact Tammy Rothell, Undergraduate Student Services Coordinator, at tammy@clemson.edu.

Reengineering Medical Training Simulators

Drs. Jiro Nagatomi and Delphine Dean
2 credits per semester for at least 3 consecutive semesters
Course open to sophomores and juniors in any major; five to ten students participate by invitation only

Despite commercially available simulators, most of medical procedure training is conducted on human patients. Medical students and interns perform their first trial of injection, intubation of airway, placement of central venous line, birthing, and neonatal resuscitation, and numerous other procedures on live patients. This is mainly due to the fact that the commercially available simulators do not completely simulate the anatomy and physiology of humans, thus, they do not allow realistic training specimen for medical students. Thus, with clinical guidance and consultation from medical professionals, this creative inquiry project aims to:

  • Reverse-engineer and examine the problems associated with the existing models of medical training simulators
  • Develop new devices or additional components to the existing devices to enable more realistic simulation for training of physicians.

Functional Tissue Engineering of Heart Valves

Drs. Jiro Nagatomi and Dan Simionescu
2 credits per semester for at least 3 consecutive semesters
Course open to sophomores and juniors in any major; five to eight students participate by invitation only

Improved technologies, such as prosthetic heart valves, save more than 100,000 patients of cardiovascular diseases every year. Two types of artificial heart valves exist on the market—one made from processed animal tissues (biological valve) and the second made from carbon sheets (mechanical valve). Biological valves degrade slowly and may fail within 15 years of implantation, requiring additional surgery to replace the defective implants. Mechanical valves induce formation of blood clots and thus require patients to be on life-long anticoagulation medication, which can be a major inconvenience for many patients. This class adopts tissue engineering approaches (scaffolds, cells, bioreactors) to create valves that will neither degrade nor induce blood clots, eventually helping numerous patients who suffer from heart valve diseases.

Students have already been working on two projects for this ongoing course, which began in Spring 2008. The projects have centered on the creation of both a fiber-reinforced tissue engineered heart valve containing live cells and a mechanically engineered one that involves growing cells on mechanical valve surfaces to make them less prone to blood clots. This fall, different approaches will be tested, including cell culture, scaffold development and testing in heart valve bioreactors. Exciting new projects may also evolve from current studies.

Clemson University Implant Retrieval Program

Dr. John DesJardins
2 credits per semester for up to 3 consecutive semesters
Course open to undergraduate engineering majors at all levels

Design is a fluid process of innovation, assessment, prototyping, evaluation, review and refinement. Students will be exposed to real-world design issues in bioengineering, with field trips to industry and clinical sites that make use of or are in need of equipment and devices that require design innovation.

Service learning and community outreach activities will be integrated into the Creative Inquiry experience. Local hospital and clinician interaction will be used to foster design initiatives that can have a direct impact on the community, and students are encouraged to participate as mentors, and/or judges in local and regional design challenges such as the Lego and Robotic design tournaments and the Tri-Country science fairs that are held at Clemson each year.

MACOBE

Drs. Delphine Dean and Jim Brannan (Mathematical Sciences)
2 credits per semester for up to 3 consecutive semesters
Course open to all undergraduates

Computational science plays an increasingly important role in areas of bioengineering such as geometric modeling, simulation, computational biomechanics, statistical signal processing, control and optimization, medical imaging, and scientific visualization. This Creative Inquiry project, Integrating Mathematical and Computational Science into Bioengineering Modeling and Design Problems, focuses on current problems in bioengineering, the role of mathematics and computation in helping to solve these problems, critical thinking, working in multidisciplinary teams, and presentation skills. Students work in small multidisciplinary teams on a wide range of projects aimed at solving problems at the interface of math and biomedical engineering.



Department of Bioengineering
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