Parallel Curriculum of Biomedical Engineering Subjects with
Rotational Experimental Project for Interdisciplinary Study Field
Shigehiro Hashimoto, Mieko Ohsuga, Masahiko Yoshiura, Hiroshi Tsutsui, Kenzo Akazawa, Shuichi
Mochizuki, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, Fumitaka Nakaizumi, Toshia Fujisato, Toshikazu Kawai, Sadahito Uto,
Katsuyoshi Tsujita
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology,
Osaka, 535-8585, Japanhashimoto@bme.oit.ac.jp http://www.oit.ac.jp/bme/

ABSTRACT
Biomedical Engineering is an interdisciplinary study field
spreading over mechanical engineering, electrical engineering,and material engineering, which are bound with medicine.
Special fields of biomedical engineering should be developed on
the wide fundamental engineering base, which require a long
distance of study. A parallel curriculum of several engineering
subjects, which includes basics and application, with a rotational
experimental project has been designed for undergraduate
courses to cover wide basic field of “biomedical engineering”
and to stimulate motivation of study, simultaneously. The
results are evaluated with questionnaire to students.
Keywords: Interdisciplinary Study Field, Biomedical
Engineering, Rotational Experimental Project, Parallel
Curriculum

long distance of study is required. To keep motivation forstudying the challenging field during the monotonous basic
study period, stimulation is necessary for students fromapplication subjects. The biomedical engineering field is easy
to understand contribution to the society, because many of its
outcomes are applied to human through healthcare technology.

2. PARALLEL CURRICULUM
The curriculum for biomedical engineering has several problems
as follows:
1)
2)
3)

Multi-disciplinary field demands broad fundamental
knowledge.
Variation of preparative educational background makes it
difficult to make common sense among students.
Large amount of monotonous basic study makes it difficult
to keep motivations to study the challenging new field ofengineering.

1. INTORDUCTION“Biomedical Engineering” is an interdisciplinary study field
spreading over mechanical engineering, electrical engineering,and material engineering, which are bound with medicine (Fig.
1).
The biomedical engineering field consists of bothbio-mimetic technology and application of engineering to
medicine.
The field includes “Robotics”, “Medical
Instrumentation” (Fig. 2).
Biomedical engineering is not an interface between engineeringand medicine, but an independent fundamental field tocontribute to a variety of applications.
The origin of
biomedical engineering is technology on human and manyengineering methodology has been progressed from the field.
Recently, most of subjects in science have become notcompulsory but optional to high school students in Japan, whichcauses wide variation on academic background of students in thedepartment. Additionally, many students tend to abandonbuildup approach subjects, which causes decrease in the numberof students who choose the scientific field.
Special fields of biomedical engineering should be developed on
the wide fundamental engineering base. To master the basic, aTo overcome these problems, “Parallel Curriculum of
Biomedical Engineering Subjects with Rotational Experimental
Project” has been designed in the department instead of thebuildup approach (Fig. 3).
The mission of biomedical engineering project is to educate anengineer, who understand human with a background of
MechanicalEngineering
Medicine
Biomedical
Engineering
Electronics
Materials

Chemistry
Physics
BiologyFig. 1: Biomedical engineering field.

fundamental engineering and has an ability to create things
adaptive to human and environment. The project contributes
engineers, who develop technology for diagnostics treatment in
the healthcare field and design a nursing-care robot in thewelfare field, to aging society with a falling birthrate.
Through the biomedical engineering program, students should
attain:(a) the broad education necessary to understand the impact ofengineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental,
and societal context, with the background of study on DNA(deoxyribonucleic acid) about origin of life, evolution andadaptation, and on technological history about evolution ofhuman,(b) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibilityof engineer on life and health for society and environment,(c) an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, physics,
chemistry, and biology and informatics to biomedical
engineering,(d) an understanding of theoretical background on mechanics,
electronics, and physiology,(e) to design and conduct experiments on electronics,
mechanics, materials and systemics, as well as to analyze,
make measurements and interpret data from living systems,(f) an ability to use the techniques, skills and modern
engineering tools necessary for engineering practice,(g) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve problems at theinterface of engineering and biology, associated with theinteraction between living and non-living materials andsystems,(h) to design system, component, or process to meet desiredneeds on problem of healthcare, welfare and nursing carewithin realistic constraints such as economic,
environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety,
manufacturability, and sustainability,(i) an ability to communicate effectively and internationally inmulti-disciplinary teams,(j) a recognition of the need for, and an ability to engage inlife-long learning,(k) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams.
To achieve above education objectives, core courses of“Fundamental Seminar for Biomedical Engineering”,“Rotational Experimental Project”, “Biomedical Engineering
Seminar” and “Bachelor Thesis” are prepared in parallel with“Fundamental”, “Common”, “Mathematics and Information”,“Measurement and Systems”, “Electronics and Mechanics”, and“Materials and Medicine” courses in the curriculum. Eachcourse includes basic and applied contents simultaneously,
which enables to attain fundamental engineering sense, andability for communication, presentation and designing throughunderstanding human from the multi-disciplinary viewpoints ofengineering and medicine.
“History of Technology” and “Ethics in Engineering” offer
opportunity to learn responsibility as a global engineer;

Biomedical engineering

Research field
for supporting development of technology
Basic technology
Robotics

・SensorKey technology
・Controlfor development
・Informatics
・Material sciense
Innovative technology(Study on organism)

Robot for Surgery,Welfare, etc.

Organism
Human

Fig. 2: Robotics and biomedical courses.

Biomedical
engineering

Application to
medical diagnosis
and treatment,(Artificial organs,
X-ray CT, etc.

“Exercises on Mathematics”, “Exercises on Physics”, “Exercises
on Chemistry”, “Introduction to Biology” and “Information
Processing” educate ability to apply basic knowledge of science;“Introduction to Medical Engineering”, “Electronics”,“Introduction to Mechanics”, etc. educate theoreticalbackgroundofbiomedical
engineering;“Rotational
Experimental Project”, “Fundamental Seminar for Biomedical
Engineering”, “Biomedical Engineering Seminar”, and“Bachelor Thesis” offer opportunity to learn ability for
identification, designing, communication, life-long learning.
Courses are listed in Table 1.

Table 1: Biomedical engineering courses for undergraduate
students (unit of credit hours: one unit corresponds to eleven
hours). *compulsory.
(Fundamental Courses)
Calculus (6)Linear Algebra (4)Fundamental Information Processing (4)Physical Experiment (4)(Common Courses)
Fundamental Seminar for Biomedical Engineering (2)*Experiments on Electronics (4)*Experiments on Systems Engineering (4)*Experiments on Medical Engineering (4)*Experiments on Bio-measurement Engineering (4)*Biomedical Engineering Seminar (2)*Bachelor Thesis (8)*Introduction to Medical Engineering (2)History of Technology (2)*Exercises on English for Engineering (2)*Ethics in Engineering (2)*Basic Study on Patent of Medical Engineering (2)(Mathematics and Information Courses)
Exercises on Mathematics (4)*Exercises on Applied Mathematics (4)*Fundamentals of Computer System (2)*Basic Concepts of Information Processing (2)Information Processing (4)*Statistics (2)*Signal Processing (2)Bio-informatics (2)(Measurement and Systems Courses)
Measurement Engineering (2)Psycho-physiological Engineering (2)Sensory Organ Engineering (2)Imaging Technology (2)Control Engineering (2)Human Interface (2)Mechatronics (2)Robot Engineering (2)Bio-control Engineering (2)Bio-robotics (2)Introduction to Mechanics (2)*Biomechanics (2)Bio-rheology (2)Device Engineering (2)Bio-physical Engineering (2)Tribology(2)Micro-Machining (2)Sensor Engineering (2)(Materials and Medicine Courses)
Exercises on Chemistry (2)*Introduction to Biology (4)*Polymer Engineering (2)Biomaterials (2)Bio-physical Properties for Human Body (2)Biosystems Engineering (2)Tissue Engineering (2)Artificial Organs (2)Life Support Technology (2)Innovative Technology (2)(Liberal Arts Courses)
Liberal Arts (32)*Foreign Language (8)*(Partnership Courses)
Internship (2)Career Design (4)Table 2: Biomedical engineering courses for postgraduate
students (unit of credit hours: one unit corresponds to eleven
hours).
Doctor Courses
Special Research on Robotics (12)Special Research on Biomedical Engineering (12)Master Courses
Advanced Course on Bio-informatics (2)Advanced Course on Psycho-physiological Engineering (2)Advanced Course on Robotics (2)Advanced Course on Control Engineering (2)Advanced Course on Biophysics (2)Advanced Course on Bioelectronics (2)Advanced Course on Biomaterials (2)Advanced Course on Medical Engineering (2)Advanced Course on Medical Welfare Systems (2)Advanced Course on Medical Micro-device (2)Advanced Course on Biomeasurement (2)Advanced Course on Biomechanics (2)Literature Research for Thesis (8)Special Research for Thesis (8)3. ROTATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT(Electronics and Mechanics Courses)
Exercises on Physics (4)*Electrical Circuits (2)Introduction to Electronics (2)*Electronics (2)Twelve core faculties were collected to cover variety ofbiomedical engineering field through collaboration among
institutes for research project for medical engineering research
center (Fig. 3). Each faculty is in charge of an independenttheme for the rotational experimental project, as well as incharge of each advanced course in the master courses (Table 2).
“Rotational Experimental Project” consists of four courses:“Experiments on Electronics”, “Experiments on Systems
Engineering”, “Experiments on Medical Engineering”,“Experiments on Bio-measurement Engineering”. The themesof the projects are “Manufacture a solar battery and aphoto-sensor”, “Design of an electric circuit for measurement of
an electrocardiogram”, “Measurement of interaction between
biological cells and synthetic materials”, “Manufacture of arobot finger”, “Control of a robot finger”, ”Micromachining
with photolithography”, “Measurement of viscosity of fluid”,“Manufacture of a electro stethoscope”, “Design of an electric
circuit for an intelligent sensor”, “Manufacture of a position
sensor for robotics”, “Measurement and analysis of bio-signals”.
In each project, students design and conduct experiment in asmall group activity for four weeks. Each student experiences
every theme one by one.

a large spherical concave display, a computer server, a robot arm
for surgery, clean benches, incubators, an scanning electron
microscope, a confocal microscope, a micro-machining systemof stereo-lithography, and an universal testing machine. Someof them are equipped in a specially designed room such as asoundproof room, clean rooms, and a magnetic shielding room.
In the department house, each floor is divided into several
researchgroups,whichare
Bio-informatics,
Psycho-physiologicalEngineering,
Robotics,
ControlEngineering, Biophysics, Bioelectronics, Biomaterials, Medical
Engineering, Medical Welfare Systems, Medical Micro-device,
Biomeasurement, and Biomechanics.
Each space of the group consists of a faculty’s office, alaboratory for research staffs, and laboratory for undergraduate
students. The arrangement of rooms enables for young students
to learn many things from seniors and to extend their interest to
research works in their group activities.

4. ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN

5. RESULTS

Each laboratory room for the experiment is located in the nextdoor to corresponding faculty‘s office, which is convenient for
students to get advice from the faculty about the project at any
time.
The laboratory room is also equipped for the
postgraduate students’ research work, which motivates
undergraduate students to advanced study about the experiments.
The equipments are a three-dimensional position tracer, an eye
tracking system, a bio-signals monitor system, a thermography,

Applicants for admission to the biomedical engineering
department included radiological technologist, clinical engineer,and clinical laboratory technologist, who want to get ability formore creative work than daily regular work in the healthcare
field.
Students, who have such kind of professional
backgrounds, applied not only for postgraduate courses, but also
for undergraduate courses of newly established biomedical
engineering department. Students with a variety of academic

Internship
Career design

Liberal arts
Foreign language
Basic study on patent of
medical engineering
Ethics in engineering
History of technology

Matrials & Medicine
Innovative technology
Life support technology
Tissue engineering
Artificial organs
Biosystems engineering
Bio-physical properties
for human body
Biomaterials
Polymer engineering
Introduction to biology
Exercises on chemistryElectronics &Mechanics
Sensor engineering
Micro-machining
Tribology
Bio-physicalengineering
Device engineering
Bio-rheology
Biomechanics
Introduction tomechanics
Introduction toelectronics
Electronics
Electrical circuits
Exercises on
physics

Physical experiment
Fundamental Information
processing
Linear algebra

Exercises on English
for engineering
Bachelor thesis
Biomedical engineering
seminarMathematics& Information

Experiments onelectronics
Experiments on
systems
Engineeringexperiments on
medical engineering
Experiments on
bio-measurement
engineering

Bio-informatics
Signal processing
Statistics
Information
processing
Basic concepts of
information
processing
Fundamentals ofcomputer system
Exercises onappliedmathematics
Exercises onmathematics

Fundamental seminar forbiomedical engineering

Measurement& Systems
Bio-robotics
Bio-control
engineering
Robot engineering
Mechatronics
Human interface
Control engineering
Sensory organ
engineering
Imaging technology
Psycho-physiologicalengineering
Measurement
engineering

Introduction to
medical engineering

Calculus
Basic Engineering
CoursesFig. 3: Parallel curriculum of biomedical engineering subjects with rotational experimental project.

background about mathematics and science were admitted to thedepartment.
The result of a questionnaire to students in the first month showsmost of students feels difficulties about the large number ofsubjects prepared in the first semester. “Fundamental Seminarfor Biomedical Engineering” with a spontaneous research
project in a small group activity about biomedical engineering
field helps them to keep motivation to study. Especially“Physics” and “Mathematics” are the most difficult subjects
under wide variation of academic backgrounds, because theytend to have buildup approaches. The most popular subject
was “Introduction to Biology”, which includes anatomy andPhysiology. The reason why “Introduction to Biology” ispopular to the student is that the subject does not seem like one
with a buildup approach, and includes many contents, which is
new to students.
The results of a questionnaire to students (Table 3) at the end of
the second semester show that:
1) Sixty-one percent of students have not understood themission profoundly,
2) Seventy-two percent of students feel the mission
appropriate,
3) Eighty-one percent of students feel that the relation
between courses is appropriate,4) “Introduction to Biology” and “Exercises on Physics” needmore school hours,5) the average self-schooling period among students was aquarter of school hours and is not enough in most of
students,
6) “Introduction to Biology” and “Rotational Experimental
Project” gave students motivation for advance study,7) the contents of “Introduction to Biology” and “Exercises on
Physics” are ingenious,
8) equipments are good for study,9) the grade is consistent with self-evaluation in “Introduction
to Biology”,
10) the position of “Liberal Arts” in the curriculum is notunderstandable for several students.

Table 3: Questionnaire for curriculum
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

Do you understand the mission of curriculum?
Do you think the mission is appropriate?
Is the relation between courses appropriate?
Is the learning period of each subject long enough toachieve the corresponding objective?
How many hours do you study in total?
Which subject advances your motivation?
Which subject is ingenious?
Is equipment good enough for leaning?
Can you understand criteria for evaluation?
Is the grade consistent with your self-evaluation?

Opinions of parents collected at the lab-tour and at the interview
show worry about the future career and license after graduation.
“ME (Medical Engineering) engineer”, “Bioinformatics
Engineer”, and “Fundamental Engineer” are related license in
the course. Some parents pointed out that English conversation
class should follow the individual level of learning in the officehour. Most of parents evaluate “Rotational Experimental

Project” successful.
Manufacturer, especially on parts, printing, hybrid product,security system, food, pharmacy, medical device and healthcare,welcomes broad ability about basic engineering: a mechanicalengineer should understand basic electronics, for example. The
motivation for studying biomedical engineering gets attention ofindustry, because most of companies are preparing for new
projects relating to healthcare. Many manufacturers request
mechanics and electronics more than materials.

6. DISCUSSION
Recently, progress in computer technology and cell culture
technique inspires collaboration between engineering andmedicine. Osaka institute of Technology collaborates withseveral institutes: a) Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular
Surgery & Cardiovascular Center, Kansai Medical School, b)
Bioinformatics Engineering, Graduate School of Information
Science and Technology in Osaka University, c) Department ofRegenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering, Advanced
Medical Engineering Center, Research Institute of National
Cardiovascular Center, d) Surgical Assist Technology Group,
Institute for Human Science and Biomedical Engineering,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science andTechnology, e) Major in Radiology and Biomedical Engineering,
Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo (Fig.4).
The collaboration forms not only the research center for medical
engineering [1, 2], which has been established since 2005, butalso the base for education of biomedical engineering. To
advance research in interdisciplinary field, researchers
themselves should be experienced with interdisciplinary field for
promoting communication between different disciplines.
Faculties, who have various biomedical engineering researchbackgrounds, inspire motivation of students through “Rotational
Laboratory Experiments”, which start in the second semester.
In USA, many universities have held biomedical engineeringcourses. They educate many students with the ingenious
curriculum to contribute modern society [3]. In Japan, it is noteasy to make biomedical engineering curriculum forundergraduate courses, because of the difference of academic
background of high-school students and medical school system,
which admit students directly from high school.
To stimulate motivation and keep incentive in applicants ofvarious academic background;a) study field should be attractive,b) variation of learning experience should be acceptedc) a buildup approach may not be preferred.
Under these backgrounds, “Parallel Curriculum of Biomedical
Engineering Subjects with Rotational Experimental Project” hasbeen designed for biomedical engineering. The motivation iscontinuously fed back from experiment to each subject, whichforms collaborative spirals among courses.
The present curriculum is challenging one, so that less than halfof students understand the mission profoundly during the firstyear of study. Buildup approach in basic learning may beboring to most of students, but the rotational experimental
project has been effective to motivate advance study and to findMicro-device

Micromachining

Electrode

Material test
Magnet fieldKansai Medical School
Osaka Institute ofTechnology

Academic
Collaboration

Cell-culture[Cell & Materials]

ME research center

University of Tokyo

Artificial
heart

Regenerative tissue

Eye-tracking

Engineering

Research Institute of
National CardiovascularCenterAnimal experiment

Cell deformation[Measurement &Control]

Informatics

Osaka University

National
InstituteofAdvanced Industrial Scienceand Technology

Robot-handIntervational robotics

Fig. 4: Academic collaboration for “Medical Engineering (ME)”.
basic idea through applications in the multi-disciplinary study
field of biomedical engineering. The study field of biomedical
engineering may be easy for self-learning, because human itself
is subject to be studied.

University, Prof. Mitsuo Umezu of Waseda University, and Prof.
Koji Ikuta of Nagoya University for discussion to our project.

REFERENCES
7. CONCLUSION
A newly designed parallel curriculum of several engineering
subjects with a rotational experimental project is effective tocover wide field of “biomedical engineering” and to stimulate
motivation of study, simultaneously.

8. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors are thankful to Prof. Robert A. Linsenmaier ofNorthwestern University, to Prof. Richard L. Magin of
University of Illinois at Chicago, Prof. Gerald Saidel of Case
Western Reserve University, Prof. Bruce Milthorpe of
University of New South Wales, Prof. Hans Weber of Aachen
University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Kou Imachi of Tohoku[1] S. Hashimoto, W. Ikeda, Y. Morita, S. Mochizuki, K.
Yamasaki, H. Kondo, K. Imoto, Y. Ishimoto, J. Takase, H.
Otani, H. Imamura, T. Iwasaka, “Effect of Extremely Low
Frequency Magnetic Field on Cultured Skeletal Myoblasts”,
Proc. 10th World Multiconference on Systemics Cybernetics
and Informatics, Vol.4, 2006, pp.172-176.
[2] S. Hashimoto, S. Mochizuki, Y. Morita, H. Tsutsui, M.
Yoshiura, K. Akazawa, M. Ohsuga, S. Uto, H. Otani and T.
Fujisato, “Environmental Design for Muscle Cell Culture
with Magnetic Field”, Proc. 2007 Inaugural IEEE
International Conference on Digital Ecosystems andTechnologies (IEEE-DEST 2007), 2007, pp. 468-472.
[3] R.A. Linsenmeier, “Defining the Undergraduate Biomedical
Engineering Curriculum”, IEEE Engineering in Medicine
and Biology Magazine, in press.