Purdue News
Purdue NewsNovember 24, 1997
"This initiative integrates the complementary resources and expertise of the two institutions and reflects the recent assessment that biomedical engineering will experience extremely high growth over the next 10 to 20 years," said project director George R. Wodicka, chairman of the biomedical engineering program and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue.
The program, which began offering courses this fall, unites Indiana University's Schools of Medicine and Dentistry with the Purdue Schools of Veterinary Medicine, Engineering and Science to create the only biomedical engineering doctoral program in Indiana.
The program will focus its research and teaching efforts on intelligent biomaterials, orthopedic biomechanics, medical imaging, implantable devices and tissue engineering. The award will provide support for new faculty members, allow for the development of new interdisciplinary biomedical engineering courses and clinical internships, and support student fellowships.
"We expect that the majority of our biomedical engineering doctoral graduates will assume research and development positions in industry, as over 85 percent of the doctoral recipients from Purdue's Schools of Engineering do," Wodicka said.
The grant was one of seven awarded from a pool of 72 applications under the foundation's program of Special Opportunity Awards in Biomedical Engineering. These awards of up to $1 million are designed to enhance the field of biomedical engineering through permanent, high-quality programs that will have a lasting, beneficial effect. The emphasis is on education.
This is the fourth major grant to Purdue from the foundation. The first three have supported the development and maintenance of a unique Internet resource at Purdue, the Biomedical Engineering Network (BMEnet).
Through BMEnet, biomedical engineers and others have direct access to news and developments in the field, job opportunities, summaries of academic programs throughout the United States, data bases, a conference and meeting calendar, links to electronic journals and professional societies, and a custom search engine that focuses on biomedical engineering sites. The site is at http://fairway.ecn.purdue.edu/BME/
The Whitaker Foundation is the nation's largest private sponsor of biomedical engineering research and education. It supports more than 400 research projects, 140 graduate fellowships and 100 education and internship programs at colleges and universities. The foundation also supports research to lower medical costs and underwrites the development of teaching materials. More information is available at http://www.whitaker.org
Sources: George Wodicka, (765) 494-0637; e-mail, wodicka@ecn.purdue.edu
Frank Blanchard, Whitaker Foundation, (703) 528-2430; e-mail, fb@whitaker.org
Writer: Amanda Siegfried, (765) 494-4709; e-mail, amanda_siegfried@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
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