Teaching reform and practice of bioengineering comprehensive experiment based on virtual simulation technology / 生物工程学报

Bioengineering majors require students to acquire excellent abilities of thinking and analyzing complex problems and have high requirements for students' comprehensive practical skills. Because of the professional characteristics, it is necessary to develop students' abilities to solve complex problems via the teaching of a series of experiments. Therefore, it is particularly important to reform the traditional experiment teaching for students majoring in bioengineering to improve the teaching quality, which have great significance for the cultivation of comprehensive talents. In this study, with the advantages of geographical location and resources to cultivate application-oriented innovative talents, the course group of Comprehensive Experiment of Bioengineering has designed the course based on virtual simulation technology in Binzhou University. Taking the experiment of extraction and bioactivity analysis of Suaeda salsa (growing in the Yellow River Delta) polysaccharide in fermentation as a case, we studied the course design idea, experimental process, teaching method and result analysis, and have improved the teaching performance. This case analysis provides new ideas and content reference for the teaching reform of similar courses.

Synthetic Biology: opportunities for Chilean bioindustry and education

In an age of pressing challenges for sustainable production of energy and food, the new field of Synthetic Biology has emerged as a promising approach to engineer biological systems. Synthetic Biology is formulating the design principles to engineer affordable, scalable, predictable and robust functions in biological systems. In addition to efficient transfer of evolved traits from one organism to another, Synthetic Biology offers a new and radical approach to bottom-up engineering of sensors, actuators, dynamical controllers and the biological chassis they are embedded in. Because it abstracts much of the mechanistic details underlying biological component behavior, Synthetic Biology methods and resources can be readily used by interdisciplinary teams to tackle complex problems. In addition, the advent of robust new methods for the assembly of large genetic circuits enables teaching Biology and Bioengineering in a learning-by-making fashion for diverse backgrounds at the graduate, undergraduate and high school levels. Synthetic Biology offers unique opportunities to empower interdisciplinary training, research and industrial development in Chile for a technology that promises a significant role in this century's economy.

A inserção da engenharia biomédica nos cursos de graduação de engenharia elétrica no Brasil / The insertion of biomedical engineering in electrical engineering undergraduate courses in Brazil

A inserção de temas específicos da Engenharia Biomédica (EB) nos cursos de graduação em Engenharia Elétrica (EE) foi examinada em levantamento da oferta de disciplinas nesta área, realizado nos 214 cursos de EE que possuem dados sobre as grades curriculares e disciplinas em seus sítios na internet. Foram levantadas informações sobre os cursos de pós-graduação (PG) em EB existentes no Brasil, relacionadas à oferta de disciplinas de EB na graduação. Nossos dados indicam que apenas 7,5% dos cursos de EE examinados possuem pelo menos uma disciplina de EB, concentrados nas escolas públicas (87,5%) e nas regiões sul e sudeste do país (75%). Nestes poucos cursos, foram identificadas 40 disciplinas de EB. Apenas 11 delas oferecem introdução geral aos diferentes aspectos da área; os 3/4 restantes restringem-se a aspectos específicos de subáreas da EB. Além disso, 87,5% destas disciplinas são de caráter eletivo (ou não-obrigatório), com abordagem exclusivamente teórica dos temas (14,0% do total de horas-aula nas disciplinas de EB). Dos 10 programasde PG em EB, 60,0% estão em IES cujos cursos de EE possuem disciplinas específicas EB; 62,5% das disciplinas de EB são oferecidas por IES que não têm programas de PG na área, indicando pouca correlação entre a existência de um programa de PG em EB e a oferta de conteúdos nesta área para a graduação em EE. Estes dados sugerem a necessidade de inserção mais substancial e estruturada de temas de EB nos cursos de graduação em EE, em especial nas instituições privadas de ensino, e de estímulo a uma maior contribuição dos programas de PG no ensino de graduação em EE.

The present study surveyed the disciplines on Biomedical Engineering (BE) offered in 214 Electrical Engineering (EE) undergraduate courses in Brazilian Universities. Data on discipline content and other characteristics, as well as their association with graduate courses, were gathered from Internet sites in August and September, 2007. Our data indicate that only 7.5% of the Brazilian EE courses present at least one discipline on EB themes, greatly concentrated in public institutions and in the more developed south/southeast states. In only 25% of these few courses there are introductory disciplines presenting most of the different EB areas. In the remaining courses, only specific aspects of particular EB areas are presented in a fragmentary, isolated and non contextualized way. Furthermore, 87.5% of these EB disciplines are optional in the curriculium, and practical classes or approaches were offered in only 14% of the total class schedule. While 62.5% of the EB disciplines are offered by institutions that have graduating courses in EB, only 60% of the Brazilian graduation courses are involved in undergraduate EB disciplines. These data point to the need of a more structured and intensive inclusion of EB themes in the undergraduate courses (particularly in private institutions), as well as to the importance of a closer involvement of graduate courses in undergraduate instruction.