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New medical engineering lab a ‘shining example’ of teamwork at USF

Born out of a partnership between the colleges of engineering and medicine funded by “preeminence” money, the lab opens this week to provide students with hands-on research experience.
 
Published Jan. 17, 2019|Updated Jan. 17, 2019

A new lab space will open at the University of South Florida’s Tampa campus this week, providing space for collaboration between students studying engineering and medicine.

Part of USF’s newly established medical engineering department, the lab includes room for experiments in biomedicine, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Students will also have access to machines capable of designing and building medical devices, according to a news release Thursday.

Funding for the lab and its faculty comes from the Florida Legislature, which awarded USF a “preeminent” designation along with $6 million in new funding this year.

The new facility is a “shining example of the things that can happen when we combine our strengths,” USF president Judy Genshaft said in the news release. “This new department is already making an impressive impact, and it shows what we can achieve through preeminence.”

RELATED: USF partnership creates department of medical engineering

Robert Frisina, chairman of the department, added that preeminence funding was “critically essential" for its development. The university is now one of only four in Florida to offer a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering.

Currently, 105 undergraduate students are enrolled in the program, as well as 45 working toward a master’s degree, USF said.

While the university is still in the process of recruiting researchers for the department, two professors have already joined, bringing with them a combined $5 million in grants.

They are Huabei Jiang, who most recently served as the endowed professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida, and George Spirou, who comes from West Virginia University, where he was director and endowed professor of neuroscience.

“Biomedical engineering is the fastest growing area of engineering and one of the top job fields in the United States if you look out over the next 10 years,” Frisina said. “We were able to fill a critical gap in Florida’s State University System for training biomedical engineers."

Contact Megan Reeves at mreeves@tampabay.com. Follow @mareevs.