Technical Elective Courses Listings
In addition to the required courses, the Texas A&M Department of Biomedical Engineering offers a wide range of elective courses to give undergraduates the opportunity to study further what most interests them. Roman numerals to the right of the credit indicate the semester in which it is usually offered – “I” for fall and “II” for spring; few elective courses are offered in the summer, but are denoted by “S”. Here is a brief description of current Biomedical Engineering courses suitable for use in the Other Courses section of each track:
In addition to the required courses, the Texas A&M Department of Biomedical Engineering offers a wide range of elective courses to give undergraduates the opportunity to study further what most interests them. Roman numerals to the right of the credit indicate the semester in which it is usually offered – “I” for fall and “II” for spring; few elective courses are offered in the summer, but are denoted by “S”. Here is a brief description of current Biomedical Engineering courses suitable for use in the Other Courses section of each track:
285. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 4.
Permits students to undertake special projects in biomedical engineering at an earlier point in their studies than required for BMEN 485.
Prerequisite: Approval of program chair.
289. Special Topics in... Credit 1 to 4.
Selected topics in an identified area of biomedical engineering. May be repeated for credit.
Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
310. Clinical Engineering. (3-0) Credit 3.I
Equipment control concepts and techniques and their application in hospitals and in the medical profession; device evaluation specifications; preventative maintenance and service; calibration, regulation and medical product liability.
Prerequisite: BMEN 321.
401. Principles and Analysis of Biological Control Systems (3-0) Credit 3.I
Techniques for generating quantitative mathematical models of physiological control systems and devices; the behavior of physiological control systems using both time and frequency domain methods.
Prerequisites: BMEN 321; MATH 308; VTPP 334 and 335.
402. Biomedical Optics Laboratory. (2-3) Credit 3.I
Biomedical optics technology; basic engineering principles used in developing therapeutic and diagnostic devices; hands-on labs will be performed including optical monitoring, diagnostic and therapeutic experiments.
Prerequisite: PHYS 208 or approval of instructor.
405. Virtual Instrumentation Design for Medical Systems. (2-3) Credit 3.I
Design of medical systems using graphics programming language of LabVIEW including the designing and programming of three virtual systems as follows: cardiac monitor, electromyogram system for biomechanics, and sleep stage analyses from electroencephalograms.
Prerequisites: BMEN 321 and 322.
410. Advanced Clinical Engineering. (2-3) Credit 3.I
Training in clinical engineering through hospital-based experience in medical systems technical knowledge, clinical engineering management, technology assessment, and hospital management.
Prerequisite: BMEN 310.
422. Biomaterials and Artificial Organs. (3-0) Credit 3.I
Current practice of material selection and design of artificial internal organs including orthopedic, cardiovascular and other implant applications. Regulations, standards and testing.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240; VTPP 334 and 335.
423. Microscale Bio-Optic Applications. (3-0) Credit 3.I
Introduction to biomedical applications of lasers to manipulation, detection, and visualization on (sub-) cellular length scales, with emphasis placed on the governing principles on which applications are founded; applications from recent literature (state-of-the-art) will be presented.
Prerequisites: BMEN 306, BMEN 322; junior or senior classification.
424. Biomedical Sensing & Imaging at the Nanoscale. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Introduction to nanotechnology with an emphasis on biomedical techniques and medical applications. The material covered ranges from the basic physics of contrast agents to the engineering of current sensing and imaging systems applied at the nanoscale.
Prerequisites: Senior classification or instructor approval.
426. Optical Biosensors. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Biosensing principles and detailed analysis of optical methods for transduction; fluorescence-based transduction; molecular recognition of targets; immobilization of sensing reagents; quantitative analysis of sensing systems; design and characterization of sensing assays and associated measurement systems; review of historical and current trends in optical biosensors.
Prerequisite: Senior classification or approval of instructor.
430. Medical Device Regulation. (3-0) Credit 3.I
Introduction to the regulations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration pertaining to testing and marketing medical devices.
Prerequisites: BMEN 310; junior or senior classification.
431. Thermodynamics of Biomolecular Systems. (3-0) Credit 3.I
Introduces equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and applies them to understand various biomolecular systems; including ensemble theory, reaction kinetics, nonlinear dynamics, and stochastic processes; with applied examples such as enzyme-ligand binding kinetics, conformational dynamic of proteins and nucleic acids, population dynamics, and noise in biological signals.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240, PHYS 208, MATH 308.
432. Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Introduces biomolecules and their assemblies that play structural and dynamical roles in sub-cellular to cellular level mechanics, with emphasis on quantitative/theoretical descriptions, and discussions of the relevant experiment approaches to probe these nano- to micro-scale phenomena; including topics in (1) self assembly of cytoskeleton and biomembranes, (2) molecular motors, (3) cell motility, and (4) mechanotransduction.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240, MATH 304; junior or senior classification.
440. Design of Medical Devices. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Overview of the multiple issues in designing a marketable medical device, including the design process from clinical problem definition through prototype and clinical testing to market readiness; includes FDA regulation, human factors and system safety considerations and medical product liability.
Prerequisites: BMEN 342; senior classification in engineering.
451. Cell Mechanobiology. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Focus on how mechanical forces influence cell behavior through physical and biochemical mechanisms; integrating engineering and cell biology to solve biomedical problems, which includes developing models for applying forces to cultured cells and tissues and measuring changes in cell biochemistry, structure, and function.
Prerequisite: BMEN 282 and admitted to major degree sequence in biomedical engineering.
452. Mass and Energy Transfer in Biosystems. (3-0) Credit 3.II
Transport phenomena associated with physiological systems and their interaction with medical devices; exchange processes in artificial life support systems and diagnostic equipment.
Prerequisites: BMEN 341; MATH 308; VTPP 334 and 335.
460. Vascular Mechanics. (3-0) Credit 3.
Application of continuum mechanics to study the vasculature; emphasis on measurement and quantification of material properties and calculation of stresses; analysis of several cardiovascular devices to reinforce the need for careful analysis in device design.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240 and 421.
461. Cardiac Mechanics. (3-0) Credit 3.
Application of continuum mechanics and computational solid mechanics to the study of the mammalian heart; utilization of continuum mechanics and finite element analysis in solving non-linear boundary value problems in biomechanics.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240 and 463; approval of instructor.
462. Vascular Fluid Mechanics. (3-0) Credit 3.
Bio-fluid mechanics of the human circulatory system including examination of disease development and medical treatments.
Prerequisites: BMEN 341 or equivalent; junior or senior classification.
463. Soft Tissue Mechanics and Finite Element Methods. (3-0) Credit 3.
Application of continuum mechanics and finite element methods to the study of the mechanical behavior of soft tissues and associative applications in biomedicine.
Prerequisites: BMEN 240 or equivalent; junior or senior classification.
468. Biothermomechanics. (3-0). Credit 3.
Introduction to a continuum thermomechanics approach to quantifying soft tissue behavior in response to combined thermal and mechanical loads including thermoelasticity and thermal damage.
Prerequisites: BMEN 241 and 341; junior or senior classification.
469. Entrepreneurial Issues in Biomedical Engineering. (3-0) Credit 3. I
Description and analysis of issues associated with initiating business ventures to transfer biomedical technologies into the health care sector, including intellectual property protection, seed funding alternatives, and business strategies relevant to the biomedical engineering technology area; and utilizing recent case studies of previous ventures.
Prerequisites: Admitted to major degree sequence (upper-level) in biomedical engineering.
470. Introduction to Biomedical Optics. (3-0) Credit 3.
Fundamentals of biomedical optics; basic engineering principles used in optical therapeutics, optical diagnostics and optical biosensing.
Prerequisites: MATH 308; PHYS 208. Cross-listed with CHEN 470
480. Biomedical Engineering of Tissues. (3-0) Credit 3.
Introduction to aspects of tissue engineering with an emphasis placed on tissue level topics including tissue organization and biological processes, with insights from recent literature (state-of-the-art).
Prerequisites: Admitted to major degree sequence (upper-level) in biomedical engineering.
482. Polymeric Biomaterials. (3-0). Credit 3.
Preparation, properties, and biomedical applications of polymers including: polymerization; structure-property relationships; molecular weight and measurement; morphology; thermal transitions; network formation; mechanical behavior; polymeric surface modification; polymer biocompatibility and bioadhesion; polymers in medicine, dentistry, and surgery; polymers for drug delivery; polymeric hydrogels; and biodegradable polymers.
Prerequisites: BMEN 342 or approval of instructor; junior or senior classification.
483. Polymeric Biomaterial Synthesis. (3-0) Credit 3. I
Overview of polymer synthetic routes and key structure-property relationships with emphasis on the design of polymeric systems to achieve specific properties; tissue engineering and drug delivery applications will be used as model systems to explore the process of biomaterial design from synthesis to device evaluation.
Prerequisite: BMEN 343 or approval of instructor.
485. Directed Studies. Credit 1 to 6. I, II, S
Permits students to undertake special projects in biomedical engineering.
Prerequisite: Approval of instructor.
486. Biomedical Nanotechnology. (3-0) Credit 3. I
Nanotechnology applications in biomedicine; concepts of scale; unique properties at the nanoscale; biological interaction, transport, and biocompatibility of nanomaterials; current research and development of nanotechnology for medical applications, including sensors, diagnostic tools, drug delivery systems, therapeutic devices, and interactions of cells and biomolecules with nanostructured surfaces.
Prerequisite: BMEN 343, senior classification, or approval of instructor.
489. Special Topics in... Credit 1 to 4. I, II, S
New or unique areas of biomedical engineering which are of interest to biomedical engineering and other undergraduate students.
491. Research. Credit 1 to 4. I, II, S
Research conducted under the direction of faculty member in biomedical engineering. May be repeated two times for credit. Registration in multiple sections of this course is possible within a given semester provided that the per semester credit hour limit is not exceeded.
Prerequisites: Junior or senior classification and approval of instructor.
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