The Summer Research Institute in Biomedical Materials Science and Engineering  (RIBSE) is an intensive, 12-week program combining didactic teaching (lectures, seminars, research ethics and laboratory demonstrations) with team-based laboratory research to introduce undergraduates to facets of interdisciplinary research that require going beyond the disciplinary-based approaches in which all students are grounded.          

In addition to receiving academic credit (3 credits), tuition and research costs will be paid by the program, and students will receive a $3,000 stipend.   If participants choose to live on-campus during the 12-week program, housing costs will be paid by the program. 

The program begins with a 5-week advanced course (May 21– June 22) integrating topics in the chemistry of tissue engineering. This course combines innovative pedagogical approaches with an independent laboratory research project related to some aspect of the complex problems facing biomaterials surface chemistry, such as chemistry of polymeric membrane materials, surface chemistry, the molecular biology of cell adhesion and growth and the in-vitro cell and tissue biology applicable for study of synthetic materials, molecular diagnostics of protein and growth factor structure and function, etc.  

Participants will gain hands-on experience with interdisciplinary methodologies and will engage in independent as well as team-based research.

The research program will focus on synthetic polymer materials surface chemistry based on molecular biological principles of cell and tissue growth. This work centers around the development of polymer surface chemistries that derive their structure and function from fundamentals of molecular biology such as cytokine and growth factor based competitive tissue growth and integrin cell adhesion mechanisms.

Laboratory research rotations.  Groups of four to five participants with complementary disciplinary backgrounds will focus a group research project within one of four clusters (tissue engineering, imaging science, protein structure and function and cell signaling). 

Team-based research.  Participant groups will meet regularly to discuss their present experiences, and put this in the context of their disciplinary background.  For example, students with cell biology can help mentor chemistry students with little experience in cell biology methods.