With the burgeoning of the fields of immunology and immunotherapy in the last few decades, the use of pharmaceutical products, biomedical devices, and biomaterials in immunological research and clinical applications has rapidly expanded. Accordingly, there has been an increasing need for engineers trained with the quantitative skills necessary for developing effective immunotherapies and with the skills to translate these developments to industry. Immunology is a basic science that has a lot of applications that need to be translated to positively impact patients' lives (e.g. anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive drugs, avoiding transplant rejection, adoptive cell therapy for cancer treatment). Most companies working in this area of ImmunoEngineering hire basic scientists since immunology is a basic science, albeit one that has a lot of applications amenable to translation in order to positively impact patients' lives (e.g. anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive drugs, avoiding transplant rejection, adoptive cell therapy for cancer treatment). However, these individuals do not have training in engineering nor quantitative or systems perspectives. In contrast, engineers are also hired into companies that work in ImmunoEngineering areas, but often they do not have immunology training. The training program described in this application is aimed to better equip engineers by training them in immunology (as well as in engineering). Through this ImmunoEngineering training program, we will develop a new type of engineering trainee, one who can apply engineering principles with knowledge of immunology to make impacts on new treatments for disease and who will fill a critical gap in existing bioengineers entering today's work force. Our training program will furthermore provide professional development and ethics training to equip trainees with important ?soft skills? such as project and time management, ethics and personal insight into their character attributes to best position them for leadership positions in ImmunoEngineering industry and research.
This pre-doctoral student training program will develop ImmunoEngineering leaders of the future with the knowledge and skills in state-of-the-art immunology with application of engineering principles and the leadership skills to take prominent positions in ImmunoEngineering Research and Industry.
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