<p>So obviously, Duke is one of the top biomedical engineering schools in the nation (and perhaps worldwide as well.) However, my interests lie more with biotechnology. Of course, the overlap between the two majors tempts me to pick the best one (which I would assume is biomedE). </p>
<p>I suppose my question is... How does biotechnology fare in comparison to biomedical engineering at Duke?</p>
<p>You might have to be a bit more specific with regard to a few points:</p>
<p>1) What exactly do you mean by biotechnology? Are you talking about medical instrumentation? Or more biological like genomics? Or maybe bioinformatics? Or maybe tissue engineering? Biotechnology is just such a murky word…</p>
<p>2) What do you mean “how does biotechnology fare in comparison to biomedical engineering at Duke?” Duke doesn’t have a biotechnology major as far as I know. Are you comparing another school’s biotechnology program with Duke’s BME? If so which one? Or are you speaking generally about biotech vs. BME? </p>
<p>3) Lastly, what exactly are your interests? You mentioned that they lie more with biotechnology but how exactly?</p>
<p>Hey SBR,</p>
<p>Sorry for being so ambiguous. Thanks for taking the time to help me improve my question. Please let me know if I’ve still left anything unclear.</p>
<p>1 & 3) As for my interests, I like biotechnology more than biomedical E because I like to discover more about life and applying my findings to life rather than i.e. studying how to save lives through artificial transplants/tissue engineering, etc. I suppose I would be talking more about genomics in this regard. (I don’t like bioinformatics.)</p>
<p>2) Perhaps I am confused… On the commonapp, it asks me to list my academic interests, selected from a list of which both biomedical engineering and biotechnology are included. Why would they have biotechnology if that major was not offered?</p>
<p>I’m not sure about the commonapp since I haven’t seen it since I applied 4 years ago. </p>
<p>1) If you like discovering more about life and applying it to life, then it sounds like you are probably better off doing a straight bio major. Seems to me that you would like the biomedical sciences rather than biotechnology. But that choice is probably more relevant when you thinking about grad/med schools. </p>
<p>2) Academic interests might not coincide exactly with offered majors. AFAIK, I’ve never heard of a US school that offered a “biotechnology” major. The closest I’ve heard is the department of nanomedicine and biomedical engineering at the UT Health Science Center, Houston/MD Anderson Cancer Center. That’s for graduate and professional students.</p>
<p>You should also realize that you interests WILL change in college. In high school, there is no possible way I could say I hate bioinformatics and like biotechnology more than biomedical engineering. Perhaps you have had more exposure to these fields than I did at that point in my life, but I think you’ll gain a lot of insight into your true passions by keeping an open mind in college and taking a variety of courses, and seeing what piques your interest. You certainly should pursue your current interests, but don’t close anything off.</p>
<p>Having said that, the BME curriculum at Duke is super broad. It covers some of the things you mentioned, but a heck of a lot more. To really get the depth in a particular interest, you find a lab that you like and conduct research in it. Nearly all Duke engineers perform undergraduate research (I think something like 90%). And the research projects are pretty endless and you don’t even have to stay in the BME department if you don’t want to. They’re also very interdisciplinary in nature.</p>
<p>For example, as an undergrad, I conducted research in a synthetic biology lab, where the PI was a biomedical engineering professor (and nearly all the lab members were in the BME department). (Essentially, the lab focused on engineering biological gene circuits. I can give you more information about it if you PM me.) This lab was located within the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy; I worked with a PhD candidate in biochemistry. The labs in our wing has professors with appointments in biology, chemistry, genetics, and material sciences departments, but they all primarily focused on genetic sciences. The research at Duke is often not separated by department; but rather labs with a similar research interest are placed next to each other in order for easier collaboration across departments. My point is that this lab wasn’t what you’d think a BME lab would like look; it was a synthetic biology lab that utilized genetics, modeling software, bacterial cultures, etc. There wasn’t any artificial transplants, tissue engineering, or medical devices going on at all. You can find a research topic that interests you at Duke, no question. And the curriculum certainly supports this. You can easily choose advanced level electives to complement your particular interests within the department.</p>
<p>From what I remember from a talk I had with the head of the BME department, there are PIs doing research in the following areas in the BME department:</p>
<p>1) Ultrasound imaging (this was one of the core fields in which Duke made its name)
2) Tissue/Biomolecular engineering (my area of research, Drs. Leong, Reichert, Katz, Yuan, You, Tian, Chilkoti, etc)
3) Photonics/Optics (Fitzpatrick institute of photonics)
4) Biomechanics (Drs. Ramanujam and Setton comes to mind)
5) Electro/Cardiac physiology (Drs. Henriquez, Bursac, Barr, and Wolf off the top of my head)
6) Neuroengineering (Duke is starting to expand into the field, I hear they are recruiting new faculty)</p>
<p>Many of the profs are involved in multiple fields, there are also a bunch of adjunct/secondary faculty from other departments, especially the med school.</p>
<p>Bluedog: can I hazard a guess that you worked in the You Lab?</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m aware, even expecting, that my interests will change in college and am thinking about double majoring in a humanity to keep my possibilities open. </p>
<p>As of now, bioengineering appeals more to me than simply biology because there it seems more exciting to me–more mysterious, new. Of course, life’s mysteries are endless, but I feel there are more opportunities in bioE. </p>
<p>It seems, from bluedog’s post, that biomedical engineering is rather broad, and I will end up taking similar courses in the beginning as a regular biology major, right?</p>
<p>Again, thanks for the help!</p>
<p>No, BME at its core is still an engineering. If you don’t like circuits, physics, chemistry, math (calc, lin alg, diff eq), programming, etc you won’t like BME. I can pretty much guarantee that you first 2 years will be more than 70% fill with those types of classes. </p>
<p>Like I said, if you want to take microbiology, anatomy, molecular bio, genomics, mammalian physiology, ecology, cell bio, biochem, etc, you are better off with bio or evolutionary anthropology.</p>
<p>How hard would it be for me to switch into biomedical engineering if I am a biology major? I’m just afraid that biomedical engineering will be too hard to switch into since biology and biomedical engineering are in different schools.</p>