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Tissue Engineering Education
Teaching students is a primary mission of GTEC. | |
THE USE OF HUMAN embryonic stem cells in possible treatments and cures for disease is one of the most hotly debated issues in the United States right now. People are grappling with the issue from ethical, legal, moral, political, religious, scientific and social perspectives.
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Among the missions of the Georgia Tech/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues (GTEC) is technology transfer. And the most important form of it is educating students, says GTEC director Robert Nerem.
GTEC faculty members teach tissue engineering to 79 graduate students and 44 undergraduates. Students are earning degrees in a variety of fields, including biomedical engineering, bioengineering, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering.
And students are learning from a wide variety of faculty experts, including biomedical engineers, chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, genetic engineers, cell biologists, molecular biologists and immunologists. GTEC even collaborates with faculty from Georgia Tech's schools of Management and Public Policy.
"We want students to be able to move from bench-top science to commercialization," Nerem says. "We plan to develop courses in public policy because we know tissue engineering is being shaped by legal and ethical issues, as well."
Students are vitally involved in GTEC research and often publish papers and give presentations at professional meetings. In addition, students founded and now operate a kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) outreach and education program that was a finalist for the Governor's Technology Leadership Award for Public Service in 2000.
"Our main goal is to make sure students know tissue engineering exists as a career choice," says Jan Stegemann, one of the founders of the K-12 program, who expects to receive a doctoral degree in December. "Students often don't realize they can be involved in the healthcare industry without becoming a doctor."
About 30 graduate students participate in the outreach program as speakers and tour guides. Since the program began in 1998, students have visited about a dozen classrooms and hosted about 10 student visits to tissue engineering labs on campus. They have reached about 500 students through these efforts.
"It is our hope that these visits and demonstrations will impress upon the K-12 students the opportunities that are available to those who learn math and science," says Donna Brown, administrative director of GTEC. "K-12 teachers are also involved in these groups and are provided enrichment for themselves and their classrooms."
– Jane M. Sanders
For more information, contact Donna Brown, GTEC, Georgia Tech, 315 Ferst Drive, Atlanta, GA 30332-0363. (Telephone: 404-385-0216) (E-mail: donna.brown@ibb.gatech.edu); or outreach program director Eric Vanderploeg, same address. (Telephone: 404-385-1168) (E-mail: gte217r@prism.gatech.edu)
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Last updated: Nov. 12, 2001