USC will begin offering bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering this fall, following March 2 approval from the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.

USC's degree programs were developed in collaboration with Clemson University and are complementary to Clemson's degree programs in bioengineering.

The chemical engineering and mechanical engineering departments will jointly administer the USC biomedical engineering degree programs, which will also have teaching and research support from USC's School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences and the Arnold School of Public Health.

"We're the only university in the state with a medical school to complement our engineering and computing college, and we expect the collaboration between the two will provide a solid foundation for these new degree programs," said Michael Amiridis, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering. "We anticipate as many as 50 students this fall. Gauging the interest we've had so far, that number could grow much higher in the future."

USC already has recruited faculty members with expertise in biomedical engineering in anticipation of the degree programs' approval. The University is using its share of a $9 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to the state to help cover salary and laboratory start-up costs for the new faculty members.

The provost's office has approved a cluster hiring through USC's Faculty Excellence Initiative that will bring five more new faculty members with biological engineering backgrounds to engineering, medicine, and arts and sciences.

"As the state's largest and most comprehensive research university, an important component of our core mission is to innovate in cutting-edge education and research at the interstices between traditional disciplines," said Provost Mark Becker, who played a key role in pushing the initiative through the CHE approval process. "Biomedical engineering is an important and growing field in which we already have a critical mass of expertise; these new degree programs will help to build that even further.

"An important feature of this program is that it complements activities at Clemson University and builds on the strong collaboration between the two institutions."

The demand for graduates in biomedical engineering is strong nationally. Typically, about one-third of graduates of such programs go on to attend medical school; one-third go to graduate school for master's or doctoral level degrees; and one-third seek employment at the bachelor's degree level.

"Biomedical engineering is a very good foundation for medical school with its problem-solving emphasis," Amiridis said. "Those who want to work after completing the bachelor's degree find employment in hospitals and for medical device manufacturers."

While the field of biomedical engineering is very broad, USC plans to focus its graduate programs on areas in which it already has strong teaching and research capabilities. "Cell to tissue biomechanics and tissue engineering--particularly as associated with cardiovascular tissue--are two such areas," Amiridis said. "Wound healing research will be another focus at the graduate level."

The undergraduate biomedical engineering degree curriculum includes 130 credit hours of coursework and a strong ethics and professional development component.

3/06