ABSTRACT There exists a national need for hybrid scientists trained at the advanced graduate level in both biology and engineering/mathematics. This need is created by the increasing difficulty of analyzing, processing, and modeling biological data that are accumulating exponentially and by the difficulty of modeling increasingly complex, biological systems. This need is manifested by the extreme difficulty of hiring faculty with the requisite hybrid training. Fortunately, this need can be met because appropriate mathematical and engineering techniques have been and are being developed to cope with both the increasing data and the increasingly complex, biological systems. For thirty years, Johns Hopkins has provided in-depth, hybrid training in biology and engineering/mathematics in its Biomedical Engineering Doctoral Program. Three new Program initiatives, in Molecular and Cellular Systems Physiology, Systems Neurophysiology and Biological Imaging continue, and expand this tradition. All three of these initiatives create a fusion between the methods of modern biology and the methods of modern engineering and mathematics. Equally important (and, perhaps, unusual), each of these programs has a strongly integrative quality because each examines biological processes at multiple levels of organization. We request support for a total of seven additional students in these three areas.
