Course abstract

During the last several decades, micro-system research mainly addressed electromechanical systems and in recent years, the focus has shifted to Bio-Microelectromechanical Systems (BioMEMS). This shift is driven primarily by the potential applications of the micro-systems to chemistry, biology and medicine. In fact, a combination of BioMEMS and microsystems has made possible the realization of physical systems at scales and dimensions similar to biological entities such as bacterial and mammalian cells, viruses, spores, etc., and this has resulted in the development of a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic applications, intelligent biochips and sensors. BioMEMS today finds many applications within the chemical, health-care, biotechnological and manufacturing industries and this has necessitated a considerable shift in the focus of engineering education. This proposal illustrates a post graduate level introductory course in BioMEMS and microsystems. The course is designed with the following three fold objective:

• To provide basic educational foundation in micro-systems engineering emphasizing Biomedical micro-devices. This would also include some basic biological/ biochemical concepts and techniques which are necessary for understanding of diagnostics and therapeutics.
• To provide education and training in fundamental micro-fabrication/microelectronic processing technologies, and
• To provide experience in micro-system design issues and various characterization schemes / biomedical/ chemical testing practices and procedures.

This course would be relevant for mechanical engineering manufacturing science/ fluidic streams graduate students and some senior undergraduate students. The interdisciplinary nature of the course would also be able to attract students from various disciplines like biosciences/ bioengineering, chemical engineering and environmental engineering. A considerable portion of the material will also be directly taught from review articles and publications. The highly interdisciplinary nature and research focus of this course may eventually be able attract some undergraduate students into graduate programs.