This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) award establishes a novel interdisciplinary training program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to address the emerging field of Cellular Engineering. Engineering cellular form and function is the basis for many ventures in the biomedical and biotechnology industries, including design of bioremediation processes, generation of artificial organs/tissues, production of biologics from cell culture, design of new and improved protein-based pharmaceuticals and targeted drug delivery. Students matriculate in one of 12 degree programs with a research focus in one of three interrelated cellular engineering thrust areas: 1) Applied Systems Biology, 2) Cell Delivery and 3) Protein Engineering. Key features include a novel unifying lecture/laboratory course to train both life scientists and engineers/physical scientists in cellular engineering fundamentals, interdisciplinary research involving "supergroup" projects in which students seek out collaboration with a related training laboratory; interactions with industry through the established UMass-Amherst Institute for Cellular Engineering; weekly research seminars with a mentoring component; and formal professional development activities.
This IGERT has all-female leadership and significant numbers of female faculty participants. Underrepresented students are recruited through the NEAGEP, an NSF-funded project co-led by UMass-Amherst and including ten research-extensive and six minority-serving institutions that collaborate to increase the number of underrepresented students who receive doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. This IGERT encourages novel research collaborations in cellular engineering among faculty, creating new bridging programs among departments and providing unique learning opportunities for trainees. Purposeful alignment with the Institute for Cellular Engineering enables substantial interaction with regional cellular engineering companies, significantly broadening student training. 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.
The Institute for Cellular Engineering (ICE) IGERT Program was the first graduate training program on campus designed to target the life sciences/engineering interface and has not only inspired new research, curriculum and outreach activities, but led to lasting impact on the UMass Amherst campus in new faculty hiring in cellular engineering and new research facilities, including a new Institute for Applied Life Sciences. A number of new and important scientific advances were made through collaborations started within the ICE IGERT and largely fueled by graduate student enthusiasm and interest. Because the cellular engineering field (i.e., understanding and directing cell function in desired ways) impacts a variety of industries and disciplines, the advances are broadly impactful and include: sustainable cellulosic feedstocks that maximize biomass yield and conversion efficiencies for optimal ethanol production, plant cell culture biotechnology for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, novel materials that possess unique mechanical properties for sustained release of drugs and chemicals, novel drug delivery approaches using cell penetrating peptides, new antimicrobial polymers with selective properties, methods for studying apoptosis to help scientists to track molecular events that cause both normal and diseased cells to die, structural analyses of enzymes implicated in lysosomal storage diseases, and novel in vitro systems for studying mechanobiology and cancer metastasis. There have been a number of education accomplishments enabled through the ICE IGERT Program that have been institutionalized in a variety of ways: (1) UMass Amherst now offers a graduate certificate in cellular engineering, based on the curricula designed for the ICE IGERT Program. This certificate is the first and only at UMass Amherst that addresses the life sciences/engineering interface. (2) There are a number of curricula that will be continued beyond the granting period, most notably the laboratory modules (29 distinct offerings including stem cell culture, fluorescent imaging, cellular metabolism and modeling), which are offered annually in a variety of fields to small groups (8-12) of interdisciplinary students. (3) The UMass Amherst Graduate School has established an Office of Professional Development (OPD) that was in part inspired by the professional development activities of the ICE IGERT Program. The staff program manager for the ICE IGERT is now the Director of the OPD and the faculty director of the ICE IGERT is now Associate Dean of the Graduate School. The novel student-run curricula including the interdisciplinary Journal Club and Research Seminar were particularly effective at engaging students in a comfortable environment, highlighting important interdisciplinary discoveries and breaking down jargon amongst disciplines. ICE IGERT also initiated a monthly event entitled "Coffee and Connections" to target the underused morning slot and provide a forum for discussion of important topics in the context of societal implications including the environment and public policy. The ICE IGERT students were active participants in the design and development of the ICE IGERT Program and included students from six degree-granting programs, ~50% female representation and ~20% underrepresented minority representation. Students developed lab modules in insect wave cell culture, patch clamp electrophysiology and biomaterials. Several students established external collaborations with new research groups and industry. In fact, seven students completed graduate industrial internships (most three months in duration) at companies including Proctor & Gamble, Genzyme, Weyerhaeuser and Boehringer Ingelheim. With the ICE IGERT emphasis on entrepreneurship, several students participated (and won!) in the UMass Innovation Challenge, a competition involving 20 interdisciplinary teams working closely with faculty members and external industry advisors to conceptualize a product and create a business plan for commercialization. The entrepreneurial spirit of the ICE IGERT Program set the stage for a new Business Leadership Certificate offered to STEM doctoral students and taught by UMass Amherst Isenberg Business faculty.
