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Newswise The University of Illinois College of Medicine has presented to the universitys Board of Trustees a white paper with a series of recommendations that would integrate engineering and technology into medical training programs, develop a new bioengineering institute, and build upon research that would attract more federal dollars to the four regional College of Medicine campuses at Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Urbana-Champaign.

The initiative would draw upon the strengths in engineering and medicine that exist across all campuses of the University of Illinois. The UI College of Medicine, based at the Chicago campus, is the largest in the nation -- and the most diverse -- and is part of a comprehensive health sciences center. The Urbana-Champaign campus, in turn, has one of the top-ranked colleges of engineering in the country, as well as renowned strengths in supercomputing, basic and applied sciences, and humanities.

The University of Illinois is well-positioned to leverage and integrate existing engineering and medical expertise to provide our students new opportunities for learning and research in bioengineering and biotechnology, said Dr. Dimitri Azar, dean of the College of Medicine. A unified College of Medicine, together with UICs six other health science colleges, have the potential to promote university-wide collaborations that take advantage of our existing strengths.

The key, Azar said, is to couple the College of Medicines access to clinical learning opportunities with the Urbana-Champaign campuss College of Engineering, which is engaged in advanced bioengineering research and device development.

We must reorganize and recruit additional faculty to support new programs that integrate engineering and medical education, Azar said.

Short-term recommendations include expanding opportunities for students at all campuses by incorporating engineering into medical training; developing a new medical engineering training track; expanding an engineering-based M.D./Ph.D. program and residency programs; and formalizing partnerships with regional health systems to expand clinical training opportunities at College of Medicine sites in Peoria and Urbana-Champaign.

All of these initiatives could be achieved relatively quickly and at modest cost, Azar said.

The proposal to establish a multi-campus Illinois Translational BioEngineering Institute within the College of Medicine -- to aid in the recruitment of additional faculty in engineering and medicine and attract more federal funding for bioengineering research -- would require additional resources, Azar said, and could be done as a final step. The recommendations are designed to be accomplished within the current unified College of Medicine structure in a step-wise fashion, leading up to the development of the institute, Azar said.

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UI College of Medicine Proposes New Intercampus Ties to Strengthen Bioengineering