Physicians sought to assist students in developing novel diagnostic tests

Physicians are needed to act as clients for a first-year undergraduate course, Engineering 100.500: Biotechnology and Human Values, during the Fall 2017 term.

Physicians will work with one or two student teams to develop a novel diagnostic test. The student team’s goal is to develop a presymptomatic sequencing or expression test that will improve the physician’s clinical practice.

The diagnostic tests can be multi-stage or single-stage and apply current methods (e.g. western blots, PCR, MRI) or emerging technologies (e.g. nanosystems, camera pills, lab-on-a-chip).

Additionally, teams will consider the legal, ethical and societal issues involved with the technology and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of their proposed test.

The course is predicated on the assumptions that a meaningful introduction to biomedical engineering and biotechnology includes: solving problems for a real client, exploring the leading edges of the field and learning strategies to solve novel problems. The challenge has been to turn teenagers straight out of high school into individuals with a real appreciation of what it takes to be a biomedical engineer.

There is a minimal time commitment involved, including:

• 3 meetings (~1 hr/meeting,  maximum of 4 hrs total): First meeting(s) should take place in mid-September, second meeting at the beginning of October, and the final meeting by the end of October

• Research an idea (or two) for a diagnostic test (1-2 hours): In case your team has not developed an idea for a diagnostic test by the third meeting, research a feasible idea for them to use.

• Email questions (2 hours): After the three meetings, the teams may have additional questions that can be triaged via a couple of one-hour email sessions.

For more information and to see examples of past Eng 100 projects, click here.

If you are interested, contact Robert Sulewski Ph.D., at robsul@umich.edu or by calling 734-763-7310.