Towards An International Tissue Engineering Curriculum: The Drexel Initiative

As many as twenty million patients per year suffer from various organ and tissue related maladies including burns, skin ulcers, diabetes, bone, cartilage, and connective tissue defects and diseases. The financial cost to care for these patients has been estimated at as much as $400 billion annually. Tissue engineering has emerged within the past 10 years as one possible solution to the current state of organ and tissue damage seen in Americans. However several limitations to its success still exist. Toward this issue and the emerging interest of Tissue Engineering in general, an undergraduate/graduate curriculum has been developed that embraces the strengths of relevant disciplines from both the sciences and Engineering to train future engineers to tackle the interdisciplinary issues surrounding the regeneration and repair of tissues. Centered around a three-year structure, the curriculum is initially designed to provide an area of concentration for upper-class undergraduate and graduate students pursuing degrees in Biomedical Science and Biomedical Engineering, but in the future could expand to encompass a full degree-awarding curriculum. In addition to class-based instruction, web-based and intercollegiate courses are suggested.