Edgar A. O’Rear, Director, University of Oklahoma Bioengineering Center
M. Ulli Nollert, Graduate Liaison
T-335 Sarkeys Energy Center
Norman, OK 73019-1004
Phone: (405) 325-5453
FAX: (405) 325-5813
Internet: http://www.oubc.ou.edu
E-mail: oubc@ou.edu
Professors K-H. Chang, Gan, S. Lee, Liu, D. Miller, O’Rear; Associate Professors Harrison, Nollert, Schmidtke; Assistant Professors Ibrahim, McFetridge, Rennaker, Schmidtke, Sikavitsas, Starly; and participating faculty from the College of Engineering units on the Norman campus, OU Health Sciences Center, and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
OU has a rich research history in biomedical engineering based on the collaborative activities of professors on the Norman and Health Sciences Center campuses beginning nearly a quarter of a century ago with early research toward an artificial liver and pioneering work in the use of thermography for mammograms. Research has more recently led to important work in the areas of blood substitutes, immunology, imaging, implantable devices, software development, and rehabilitation engineering. Based on this history and ongoing collaboration between professors on the Norman and Health Sciences Center campuses, the OU College of Engineering received a Special Opportunity Award in 1999 from the Whitaker Foundation to establish the Oklahoma Bioengineering Center (OBC) and create a graduate program. The Center is a cooperative program of the School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME), the School of Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering (CBME) and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), along with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF). Seven new faculty members were added to the three Schools to expand research and teaching in bioengineering specialties. The graduate program emphasizes an interdisciplinary education designed to increase biological knowledge through the use of engineering principles and techniques.
The facilities for OUBC are located in the buildings of the participating schools, Carson Engineering Center, Felgar Hall and Sarkeys Energy Center. Additional offices and laboratories were added in 2005 with the completion of specialized space in the Peggy and Charles Stephenson Research and Technical Center. More new offices and facilities will be available in the next few years as construction has recently begun on Devon Energy Hall and the Engineering Practice Facility.
All full-time faculty hold doctorates from such leading universities as Arizona State, Bath (U.K.), Buffalo, Cornell, Illinois at Urbana, Iowa, Memphis, Ohio State, Rice, Texas, Wisconsin, Worcester Polytechnic, and Yale.
Bioengineering is the use of engineering principles of analysis and design, and technologies to solve problems in medicine and biology. The goal of bioengineering research is to understand living systems and develop new and improved devices and products for medicine and biology. Research in bioengineering advances the health of the nation and provides technology that has contributed to the development of novel devices, drugs and systems. The principal objective of the graduate degrees in bioengineering is to provide a focused educational program in biomedical engineering for students seeking careers in industry, medicine, business and other fields related to biotechnology.
In conjunction with the Health Sciences Center campus, the MD./Ph.D. degree program was recently added for students with interest in medical school. This program will enable academically talented students to combine the extensive knowledge and training of medical school with the problem-solving and research-oriented approach of an advanced degree in bioengineering. The accelerated M.D./Ph.D. program offers students an efficient and cost-effective route toward an academic or research medical career.
In addition to the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering that are detailed below, students may choose to consider two other degree choices. The M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in traditional disciplines of engineering may be pursued with an emphasis on bioengineering offered by participating schools. Details about these degrees are available in the pages for the schools. These complementary programs allow the individual with an interest in bioengineering to follow a curriculum best suited to his/her needs.
Undergraduate students and prospective students interested in biomedical engineering or bioengineering should follow the pre-med option available in the Schools of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME), Web pages at coe.ou.edu/ame,or Industrial Engineering (IE), Web pages at ie.ou.edu, or either the pre-medical biomedical engineering option or biotechnology option available in the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering (CBME), Web pages at cbme.ou.edu. These curricula provide a solid foundation in engineering and the biosciences that can be supplemented with elective courses and undergraduate research opportunities available from the University of Oklahoma Bioengineering Center. Accelerated B.S./M.S. degree programs offered may be of interest to some students. Among the courses offered are introduction to biomedical engineering, biochemical engineering, bioinstrumentation, neural engineering, biotransport, medical imaging, biomaterials, biomechanics, cellular and tissue engineering, and biosensors.
The faculty of the OU Bioengineering Center are involved in a diverse array of research projects that aim to increase our understanding of the human body and that develop new and improved methods of diagnosis and treatment for a wide variety of disorders. Several faculty members are developing devices that can be implanted into the body to improve hearing or that will sense the level of sugar in the blood of diabetic patients. Another type of implantable device that is being developed here is tissue engineered blood vessels for cardiac bypass surgery as well as bone tissue for reconstructive surgery. Additional projects examine how implanted devices can be physically connected to the central nervous system. Some faculty are investigating the basic biochemical properties of various types of blood cells and how the functions of these cells are altered by the fluid mechanical environment found in the blood. Other faculty members are developing novel drug delivery strategies for giving clot busting drugs to patients suffering from heart attack. Finally, some of the faculty are pioneering new methods to analyze images from x-ray and magnetic resonance imaging scans to detect cancer and other pathological conditions.
In addition to meeting the general requirements of the Graduate College, any student with an undergraduate degree in engineering from an accredited school may be admitted as a student in full standing. It is recommended that students entering the program have taken at least one college biology course and one college organic chemistry course. A student with an undergraduate degree in the sciences may be admitted on the condition that specified undergraduate engineering and/or mathematics courses will have to be taken for completion of the degree program, which will depend on the background of each individual student. While here the masters and doctoral students will continue to follow the general procedures of the Graduate College for their level of degree as well as the procedures of the Bioengineering Program. More application information and application forms are available on the Web site at oubc.ou.edu.
The M.S. degree program requires 30 semester hours that can normally be completed in two years. A thesis is required. Coursework requirements for the Master of Science degree in bioengineering are the following:
Bioengineering Principles 3 hrs.
Three graduate-level bioengineering electives 9 hrs.
Two elective courses in the life sciences (chosen from the
list of approved
life science courses) 6 hrs.
Two graduate-level elective courses in engineering, science,
or math 6 hrs.
M.S. Thesis 6 hrs.
TOTAL 30 hrs.
The Ph.D. degree in Bioengineering requires 90 post-baccalaureate hours, which include the courses required for the M.S. degree in Bioengineering and a minimum of nine additional hours of graduate level courses. Research credits make up the balance of the 90 hours. Three hours of this course work must be in the life sciences (graduate credit, chosen from the list below of approved life science courses), with the other six hours selected from engineering, science, or math courses (graduate credit) in consultation with the student's research supervisor. A student with a B.S. degree may enter the Ph.D. program directly; the student is not required to complete the M.S. thesis as part of the Ph.D. degree. At the end of the program, the student will demonstrate excellence in scholarly research by authoring a Ph.D. dissertation.
During the Ph.D. program, the student is required to take a general examination in accord with Graduate College requirements. For students entering with a B.S. degree, the general examination must be taken as soon as possible after the student has completed three semesters (not including the summer semester). For students entering with an M.S. degree, the general examination must be taken as soon as possible after the student has completed one semester (not including the summer semester).
Bioengineering Courses:
AME 5213 Biomechanics I (Biosolids)
AME 5223 Biomechanics II (Biofluids)
AME 5233 Biomaterials
AME 5253 Implantable Devices
AME 5710 Neural Engineering
AME/CH E 5203 Bioengineering Principles
AME/CH E 5293 Transport in Biological Systems
CH E 5243 Biochemical Engineering
CH E 5273 Biomedical Engineering
CH E 5373 Tissue Engineering
CH E 5480 Special Topics: Biosensors
CH E 5293 Transport in Biological Systems
CH E 5480 Special Topics: Cellular Aspects of Tissue Regeneration
ECE 4973 Special Topics: Engineering Principles of the Body
ECE 4990 Special Studies: Res. & Design Experience in Bioengineering
ECE 5823 Bioinstrumentation
ECE 5843 Medical Imaging Systems
ECE 5973 Special Topics: Computational Bioengineering
ECE 6813 Advanced Topics in Biomedical Engineering
Life Science Courses:
CHEM 3653 Introduction to Biochemistry
CHEM 5753 Principles of Biochemistry I
CHEM 5853 Principles of Biochemistry II
CHEM 6721 Seminar-Biochemistry
CHEM 6813 Introduction to Biochemical Methods
CHEM 6823 Protein, Nucleic Acids, and Gene Expression
CHEM 6833 Structure and Function of Membranes and Hormones
CHEM 6843 Enzyme Mechanisms and Metabolic Regulation
CHEM 6853 Protein Structure and Function
HES 5823 Exercise Physiology
HES 5833 Advanced Exercise Physiology Laboratory
HSE 5843 Biomechanics
HES 5863 Physiology of Aging
MBIO 3932 Instrumental Methods in Biology
MBIO 3942 Instrumental Methods Laboratory
MBIO 4833 Basic Immunology
MBIO 5620 Investigations in Microbiology
MBIO 5812 Applications of Molecular Biology Laboratory
MBIO 5822 Applications of Molecular Biology
MBIO 5833 Industrial and Applied Microbiology
MBIO 5843 Introduction to Molecular Biology
MBIO 5893 Genetics and Plasmids and Bacterial Viruses
MBIO 5971 Seminar in Microbiology
ZOO 3101 Principles of Physiology Lab
ZOO 3103 Principles of Physiology
ZOO 3333 Genetics
ZOO 3342 Genetics Laboratory
ZOO 4123 Vertebrate Physiology
ZOO 4853 Neurobiology of Memory
ZOO 4913 Quantitative Biology
ZOO 5153 Endocrine Physiology
ZOO 5203 Mechanisms of Development
ZOO 5293 Cytology Ultrastructure
ZOO 5343 Developmental Genetics
ZOO 5364 Transmission Electron Microscopy
ZOO 5374 Scanning Electron Microscopy
ZOO 6012 Professional Aspects of Biology
Students completing this program will receive two degrees: M.D. and Ph.D. in Bioengineering. The M.D. program satisfies requirements for both degrees including completion of the clinical, advisory conference, general exam, written dissertation and oral defense components. Individuals pursing the M.D./Ph.D. program would be prepared to practice and teach medicine in a research setting and/or conduct biomedical research that requires a combination of expertise in medicine and bioengineering.
Admission to the program requires a B.S. degree in engineering from an accredited program. In exceptional cases, students with degrees in other technical areas may be admitted upon addressing deficiencies identified by the M.D./Ph.D. Advisory Committee and the Graduate Program Coordinator of the Bioengineering Program. Admission means acceptance by the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine (includes sitting for the MCAT, the AMCAS report, etc.) the Graduate College of the University of Oklahoma-Norman, the Bioengineering Program of OUBC, and the M.D./Ph.D. Advisory Committee. The GRE is not required, but may be submitted with the application. The minimum GPA (4.0 scale) for the Bioengineering Program is 3.50 and the minimum GPA for the College of Medicine is 3.0.
Additional information about degree options and application forms are available from the OUBC Web pages at oubc.ou.edu or the OUBC office. Information about the OU Medical School at the Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City can be found at their Web pages at http://w3.ouhsc.edu/mdphd/.