Introductory Bioengineering at UMass Dartmouth

Sankha Bhowmick, PhD Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Biotransport Education WorkshopASME 2012 Summer Bioengineering ConferenceJune 23rd, 2012

Course Information

•MNE 525/BMB 510: Introduction to Bioengineering and Biotechnology (Prereq: Advanced Math with Differential Equations)

•Dual-level course for both undergraduate and graduate

•Required introductory course for all BMB Ph. D students

•Diverse student population: Engineering, Chemistry, Biology

•Difficult to find a good and up-to-date text book

Course History

•Originally designed in the MIT/Harvard system

• BERE Program for Physicians (Whittaker funded)

• Intensive course in engineering principles applied to biological systems

•Includes quantitative measurement principles, thermodynamics, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transport, chemical kinetics.

Course SyllabusCourse Outline:1. Overview of basic biological systems and measurement tools.2. Applications of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and transport study to biological systems. 3. An introduction to chemical kinetics4. Basic biomechanics 5. Special Topics (Tissue Engineering; Drug delivery, etc)Emphasis is on engineering with relevance to clinical and research medical applications.

Grading:Homework/Assignments: 10%Discussion of research/technology papers: 10%Two term exams: 50% (25% each)- Exams are open book (or take home)Project: 30%

References:

1. Principles and applications of biomedical engineering, Berthiaume, Toner, Fowler and Yarmush2. Physical Chemistry with applications to the Life Sciences, Eisenburg and Crothers3. Biomedical Engineering Principles, Cooney. 4. Handouts of papers/articles on specific topics

Project:Each one of you will select a project topic to work on. The project can be a problem that you are working on as a part of your research or work or it can be a review of a specific field. In either case you will talk to the instructor and develop an outline for your project by mid-March. You will have to submit an abstract of what you intend to do as a part of your project during this time. The final project requires a report as well as a presentation. The final project grade will be distributed equally between the final report and the presentation.For undergraduate students who are not directly involved in research, I am willing to provide topics, if you cannot find one.

Experimental Homework

You are required to write a report on observation of cells under bright field and fluorescence microscope in Prof. Bhowmick’s laboratory.

 1. Inverted microscope: You will be given a flask of cells in the laboratory. Perform the following tasks: a) Put the flask under the microscope and turn on the lights. Bring the cells into focus. Then move the flask

around to observe cells under different viewing fields. Draw a sketch of how the cells look under the microscope. If cells assume different morphologies, you can draw multiple sketches illustrating different morphologies. Identify the cell membrane and the nucleus in your sketch. How clearly can you see them under the bright field microscope.

 b) Draw a schematic of the bright field light path of the inverted microscope. Clearly label the position of the

light source, objective, the sample and the eyepiece. Also under what magnifications (magnification is the product of the magnification of the objective and eye-piece) did you make your observations? Did you have any different observations under different magnifications?

 2. Upright microscope: You will be given an aliquot of cells. Perform the following tasks: a) Take 10 microliters of the cells and put them on a glass slide, cover it with a glass coverslip and observe them

under the brightfield microscope. Take pictures using the computer ( put the pictures as a part of a report). How are these pictures different from your observations under the inverted microscope?

 b) Draw a clear schematic of the light path of the upright microscope. How is this different from an inverted

microscope? c) Split the remaining cells into two batches. Heat one of the batches in the water bath at 60 C for 2 minutes.

Wait five minutes. Then label both the batches with Hoechst and Ethidium Homodimer (or Propidium Iodide- depending on which dye is available). Wait fifteen minutes. Put them separately under the microscope and take pictures under appropriate fluorescence filters. Show the pictures as a part of the report. What difference in observations do you make for the batch that you heated up vs. the batch that you did not heat? Can you explain them?

 d) Clearly draw the fluorescence light path. What the respective excitation and emission of the Hoecsht and

Ethidium Homodimer dyes?

 

ProjectsFLUID ANALYSIS USING

CFD AND MRI

Using Microchannels to Solve the Challenge of Vascularizing Tissue-Engineered Constructs

Learning Outcome:Finals

You are designing an ex vivo artificial organ. The cells in the organ cannot tolerate shear stress in excess of 0.5 g/cm s2. You need to design channels to deliver the nutrients to the cells. The total number of cells in the device is 2x109. The rate of oxygen metabolism is 7.8 nmol oxygen/min/mg of cells. The cell mass is 33.7 x10-12 g/cell. a) How much oxygen must be delivered to the device per second?b) Assume that the dissolved oxygen concentration in media (that is flowing over the cells) is 0.2 mmol/liter of media. What volume of fluid must be pumped into the device per second?c) Assuming the cells are 20 micrometer diameter discs, how much surface area is required for the plate if they are cultured as a monolayer (single layer- not one on top of another)?d) Find the combination of U, H and L (H is the height of the fluid- NOT THE CHANNEL- ASSUME EXTERNAL FLOW OVER A PLATE; L is the length of the channel) that do not exceed the shear stress on the cells but delivers the required oxygen to all the cells. Oxygen transport is given by the flux equationJo2= -Do2 dC/dy (Fick’s Law) [Assume a realistic diffusivity value of oxygen in water]e)Plot shear stress () and oxygen flux (Jo2) as a function of position. You can assume the properties of media to be that of water and the whole system to be at 37C. Clearly state all assumptions made. (50 POINTS)

Course Evaluation

• Most advanced students find the course material challenging and stimulating.

• Ph. D students learn about developing a proposal.

• Major challenge in developing Differential equation based approach for Biology and Chemistry students- scaling arguments

• Engineering students have fared better than Biology/Chemistry/Medical laboratory science students

Summary and Future

• A course designed to introduce bioengineering principles ( about 50% biotransport) primarily for non-engineers.

• Course in lecture formant- guest lecturers

• Introduction to measurement techniques in bioengineering (including hands on experiments)

• Project as immersion into a bioengineering topic

• Need to measure learning outcomes to distinguish between engineers vs. non-engineers.