9619674 Kummer ABSTRACT This proposal to continue a summer biomedical engineering research fellowship program for undergraduates is based on program successfully conducted at this institution for fifteen consecutive summers, the past four of which were conducted with NSF-REU support. The program is based on the premise that the ideal place to supplement the basic education of bioengineers with practical experience and expose them to real-life situations of the sort that will characterize their future careers in the intense medical environment of a teaching hospital. Such experience is critical to the education of engineers and scientists who will create new concepts and develop, design, and manufacture medical devices. Such training, moreover, is necessary to maintain and expand the competitive edge enjoyed by the U.S. medical device industry, whose products are recognized as being the world's best. The program's projects, chosen from ongoing research activities at the Hospital for Joint Diseases' Musculoskeletal Research Center with independent fund sources, involve ligament and cartilage repair, spinal fixation, fracture repair, physical chemistry of biomineralization, mechanical effects on tissue growth, and total joint design. In previous years, this strategy of adding undergraduate fellows to established research groups has maximized the students' results and given them a sense of contributing to an ongoing, useful research effort. ***
