This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of an interdisciplinary graduate training program in Life Chips at the University of California, Irvine. The purpose of this program is to provide graduate students with enhanced interdisciplinary training in the skills required for conducting research at the interface of nano/micro-technology and life science. The over-arching research theme is to promote the union of nano/micro technology and life science through research, education and outreach. The nano/micro-world provides a natural common ground for research in traditionally distinct disciplines of engineering, biology, physics, chemistry and medicine. Efforts that combine engineering arts and life sciences will accelerate developments in both fields, bringing new innovations to solve the problems of industry and the human condition. Graduate training will commence with an intensive summer program designed to put new students directly in contact with research tools from both engineering and life science laboratories, and provide interaction with dual mentors to tackle cultural barriers for the students at the onset. Students will participate in research projects that combine nano/micro-technology and life science, and that have faculty investigators from life sciences and technology arts. Graduates of this program will be leaders in the next generation of Life Chip research. They will be poised to make seminal scientific discoveries, transform these discoveries into broadly available technologies, and apply these technologies to problems in the fields of life sciences, medicine and engineering. IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers with the interdisciplinary background, deep knowledge in a chosen discipline, and the technical, professional, and personal skills needed for the career demands of the future. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries.
