University of NewMexico/Harvard PREM: Leadership in Biomaterials

University Of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM

Investigators

Abstract

UNM/Harvard PREM: Leadership in Biomaterials We have established a research and educational partnership between the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Harvard University, the University of New Mexico (UNM), the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) and the Albuquerque Public Schools (APS). This project, funded through the NSFs program on Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) will focus on a promising, multidisciplinary area of materials technology: biomaterials, which are materials (synthetic and natural; solid and sometimes liquid) used in medical devices or in contact with biological systems. While biomaterials represent a huge and rapidly growing economic component of our health care system (estimated at over $100 billion per year worldwide), they also provide an important context for increasing the relevance of materials research careers for students from under-represented groups. We are committed to this premise and have devised a plan for providing logical research connections with real-world issues in minority communities. This connection will allow us to efficiently utilize biomaterials technologies to motivate students from under-represented groups to pursue research careers. The partnership will integrate alliances with local educational institutions, focusing on education and training of minority students, teacher-education, team-based research, and professional development at all levels to result in substantive institutional and infrastructure development. This systematic approach will have an enormous impact by achieving the goals of the PREM in the short term, while guaranteeing an enduring legacy for the NSF investment in the form of an active, multi-faceted, biomaterials education and research program in the state of New Mexico. The component subprojects will be focused on developing new materials technologies for three areas of medicine that are especially problematic in minority populations: infectious diseases (inexpensive detection and diagnosis), cardiovascular diseases (tissue engineering approaches to small diameter vascular grafts and heart valves) and cancer (cost effective, individualized, genomic sequencing for diagnosis and prognosis). In each research project, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional teams will be assembled to synergistically maximize research and training efforts while taking full advantage of the spectrum of state-of-the-art facilities available at Harvard and UNM. This project will have an immediate impact on the education of minority students by partnering APS, an urban school district with a large minority population, SIPI, a tribal college with an emphasis in science, technology, engineering and math education, UNM, a Hispanic Serving Research University, and Harvard University. We will work closely with a number of minority focused science and engineering organizations to both facilitate outreach activities with APS and to recruit talented students from UNM, SIPI and APS to participate in our research projects. Partnering with Harvard provides important access to enabling expertise and equipment to facilitate biomaterials research and education development in New Mexico. Students will benefit from this partnership with Harvard by gaining access to team-based research experiences, new course offerings, networks of research professionals, professional development resources, and community outreach experience. This combination of activities will be particularly well suited for encouraging our students to strive for the highest level of research and educational careers, especially in academia. We will actively promote materials research and education as an important and relevant emergent career field, and will track the number of students that ultimately make research and education their career choices. Critically, this project, by supporting the career development of several new faculty at UNM, will enable us to institutionalize biomaterials research and education as a pillar of the first significant biomedical engineering educational program in the state of New Mexico. Success with this program will not only benefit all of the institutions involved but will have the potential to positively impact the diversity of the nations human resource pool in materials science for many years to come. The partnership will establish an exemplary tradition in minority materials education and is a logical step in enhancing the educational research infrastructure in the state of New Mexico, while allowing us to become competitive for the highest level of NSF support.