Penn State Engineering College Establishes New Department Of Bioengineering

August 4, 2000

University Park, Pa. --- Penn State’s College of Engineering has established a new Department of Bioengineering and a new undergraduate degree program for students.

"The creation of a full department in bioengineering will allow Penn State to offer our undergraduate students for the first time the opportunity to learn and do research at the crossroads of the life sciences and engineering through bioengineering," Engineering Dean David Wormley said. "Until now, bioengineering has only been available as a graduate-level program. We have strong confidence that the new department and undergraduate component will live up to the high standards already established by the existing bioengineering graduate and research program."

The department has substantial support from the Whitaker Foundation of Rosslyn, Va., which has awarded more than $320 million since 1975 to college and universities for faculty research, graduate fellowships and program development in bioengineering.

The new undergraduate program will take a unique approach to teaching undergraduate students, said Dr. Herbert Lipowsky, head of the department, adding that the first students will be admitted in Fall 2001. All students entering the major will be required to take a core of common engineering and life science courses, complemented by a concentration in one of four traditional engineering areas. Each option is a sequence of eight courses equaling 24 credits.

"We want students to have a solid foundation in engineering fundamentals," Lipowsky said. "We think this is a strong approach to undergraduate bioengineering education."

Upon completion of the core engineering and physical sciences course requirements, bioengineering students will have a choice of four specialized options:

--Electrical Engineering—for students wishing to study the design and development of medical devices, signal processing and medical imaging;

-- Chemical Engineering—for studies of transport within physiological systems, drug delivery and development of engineered tissues;

-- Mechanical Engineering—for studies of the mechanics of the human body in health and disease and applications to medical devices and orthopedics;

-- Materials Science—for studies of biomaterials that are designed to interact with living tissues at the cellular level and tailored to affect tissues in a prescribed manner.

Students graduating from the program will receive a B.S. degree in bioengineering. Graduates may choose careers in the health care industry, pursue further studies of the biomedical and engineering sciences in graduate school, or enter medical school.

Unlike traditional engineering or science programs, Lipowsky says a definite need exists for a program that combines engineering with the life sciences.

"Engineers have a unique opportunity to contribute to the knowledge of how the body functions in health and disease and to design not only new medical devices but also new strategies for therapeutic treatments by bringing their specialized approach and way of thinking to the solution of existing problems," he said.

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Contact:

Curtis Chan, College of Engineering, (814) 865-5544

EDITORS: Dr. Lipowsky is at (814) 865-1407 or at by e-mail. More information on the department can be found on the Web at http://bioeng.psu.edu.