Inspired by her little brother who has two cochlear implants to aid his hearing and an insulin pump to treat his diabetes, Christine Sleppy wants to combine her engineering skills with medicine to help change lives.

鈥淕rowing up, I saw how that sort of technology changed his life as well our whole family and made it possible for him to live like a normal person,鈥� Sleppy said. 鈥淪o I want to use my engineering skills toward the medical field to be able to impact other people鈥檚 lives the way it impacted my family.鈥�

Sleppy is among 15 麻豆原创 engineering students who are getting to know the inner workings of one of the most intricately designs machines – the human body.

Thanks to a partnership between 麻豆原创鈥檚 College of Engineering and Computer Science and the College of Medicine, the first cohort of students in 麻豆原创鈥檚 new biomedical engineering (BME) master鈥檚 program are receiving a tactile introduction to the human anatomy.

The master鈥檚 program trains young engineers to design medical devices for implant within or on the body, such as heart pumps, pacemakers, and prosthetics. Most of the students have not had any real exposure to anatomy. So the College of Medicine鈥檚 Mechanics of Biostructures class is designed to give them a better understanding of the body鈥檚 structures.

College of Medicine faculty members Drs. Mohtashem Samsam and Robert Steward lecture the students on basic anatomy. Then the students have seven four-hour lab sessions with Dr. Daniel Topping, assistant professor of family medicine and anatomy. In the lab, the future biomedical engineers examine the musculoskeletal structure of cadavers 鈥� persons who have donated their bodies to help train medical students.

鈥淲e take them through various body systems including the lungs and chest cavity, spine and back, and the upper and lower extremities,鈥� explained Topping. 鈥淭he lab runs concurrently with the anatomy class for our first-year medical students and so the students are not required to do dissections as much of the work has already been done by the medical students. But they are able to touch and feel and we pay special attention to cadavers that are found to have medical devices or prosthetics. We鈥檝e had donors with breast implants, hip replacements and a pacemaker.鈥�

鈥淚t really humanizes the experiences when you鈥檙e seeing the body intact and as a whole system rather than just parts,鈥� said student Katherine McGrane. 鈥淲e learn so much from physically seeing and touching these innermost components that we鈥檙e used to seeing only in drawings. This give us a lot more insight on how we will go forward and design better medical implants and treatments.鈥�

Program director and 麻豆原创 engineering professor, Dr. Alain Kassab said the collaboration provides an indispensable experience for the future biomedical engineers.

鈥淔or students that are working on cardiovascular flow, for example, it鈥檚 the first time they have seen what an aorta looks like in terms of the structure, the lumen and the actual geometry of these vessels,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o this will make them better modelers and better at providing solutions for medical problems.鈥�

Kassab said he is motivated by the feedback he has received from faculty and students involved in the joint program. 鈥淭here are a lot of BME programs that don鈥檛 offer such an opportunity and we think that we鈥檝e got something that鈥檚 very unique,鈥� Dr. Kassab said. 鈥淭his collaboration between the College of Medicine and the College of Engineering certainly builds bridges and we are looking forward to expanding this relationship in terms of pedagogical developments and research.鈥�