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Global Health Technologies Minor
Science & Engineering Undergraduates
Undergraduates in this program will take a series of courses, leading to a capstone experience. A new freshman course, Introduction to Global Health Issues, will introduce students from different disciplines to challenges faced by LDCs. Two subsequent courses, Metabolic Engineering for Global Health Environments and Bioengineering for Global Health Environments, will provide students with expertise in biotechnology and bioengineering applied to international health problems.
Introduction to Global Health Issues (BIOE 260)
Introduces students from different disciplines to the health and economic challenges faced by developing countries, featuring case studies of the development and implementation of high-value innovative solutions to these challenges. This course includes guest speakers from all relevant departments at Rice and from our collaborating institutions. The course also features a team project in which interdisciplinary groups of students will identify a health challenge and carry out a design analysis to indicate all the social, economic, health and technical constraints that a solution must satisfy and will present their design projects. Throughout the course, we will highlight opportunities for students to become involved in research projects focused on international health. Students will be invited to apply for research stipends to develop a mentored research project and for travel stipends to travel to one of our international collaborating sites to do additional research to understand the needs and constraints associated with this design challenge in preparation for further work on this project in subsequent courses.
Course topics: epidemiology, pathophysiology, health systems and health economics, demography, medical ethics, humanitarian emergencies, role of media, justice, history of colonialism, scientific methods and engineering design, case studies of appropriate health technologies, and the role of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Metabolic Engineering for Global Health Environ. (BIOE/BIOS 361)
Course topics: importance of nutritional and pharmaceutical compounds, impact of cost of compounds on global health, overview of biochemical pathways, genetic engineering and molecular biology tools for ME.
Course Syllabus PDF
Bioengineering for Global Health Environments (BIOE/BIOS 362)
Course topics: clinical trial design, regulation of medical technologies, and medical technology assessment. As well as presenting detailed case studies of vaccine development, diagnostic tests, and cancer screening.
Global Health Design Challenges (BIOE 461/462)
This course is a new capstone experience modeled on the year-long senior bioengineering design course, is where multidisciplinary teams of undergraduates work together to develop a solution to an international health challenge. Science, engineering, social science, humanities and public policy students in their senior year will participate together in this two semester course; for to be successful, new technologies must be developed with reference to both the societal and scientific issues associated with a global health challenge, such as design for universal use which is particularly important in developing country settings where the educational level and language spoken by users may vary widely. Mentored by interdisciplinary faculty teams, students will elect from a portfolio of challenges to either 1) design and implement a solution to a real-world international health challenge or 2) participate in a focused research project with direct applicability to world health issues.
Course topics: the fundamentals of the research and design process; developing a design from initial concept, to basic research, to prototype and to device evaluation; the design and regulation of medical devices and biotechnology innovations.
Elective Courses
Two electives are required for completion of the curriculum. A current list of elective courses can be found on the global health technologies curriculum overview page.
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