Mandi, 3rd June 2019: Indian Institute of Technology Mandi is launching a new unique B.Tech – M.Tech integrated dual degree programme in Bioengineering from 2019-20 Academic Year, which aims to offer a wide plethora of problem-solving opportunities. Ranging from sensing of data from the biological world to actuation through prosthetics, from computational models to understand the biological world to machine learning techniques for diagnosis, this programme would cover Bioengineering from a more generalised perspective without getting limited to only Biomedical Engineering.
The B.Tech – M.Tech Integrated Dual Degree Programme in Bioengineering is a first-of-its-kind in India and it will widen the horizon of Bachelor’s level students to choose from different areas for specialisation in Bioengineering, like Biomedical Engineering, Agro-Technology, Computational Bioengineering or Environmental Science and Engineering.
Speaking about the uniqueness of the programme, Dr. Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, said, “Such a broad base Bioengineering programme with specialization appearing at a later stage allows the B.Tech students to explore their inner strengths and postpone the decision of specializing to later stages of the programme.”
Combined with IIT Mandi’s philosophy of providing a broad base engineering education, the programme synergises engineering fundamentals with biological domain areas with the intent of generating engineering manpower endowed with a sufficient appreciation towards biology. The dual degree programme strives to train students in the field of basic electrical and mechanical engineering disciplines together with principles in physical, chemical, mathematical, computational and biological sciences together with engineering principles for the development of technology aimed at providing diagnostic, therapeutic and assistive and analytical support to biological systems.
Speaking about this course, Dr. Anil K. Sao, Associate Dean (Courses), IIT Mandi, said, “Given the necessity of bioengineer in highly populated countries like India, this program will develop skills in graduating students who can design and innovate the technology used in the field of Bio systems. It will also help students in getting a better idea of various engineering aspects of the Biological systems.”
The objectives of the programme are:
- Assimilate knowledge of physical, mathematical and biological sciences together with engineering principles for the development of diagnostic, therapeutic and assistive technologies as well as developing algorithms and models to understand biological systems and processes
- Train manpower for industries dedicated to technologies applied to biological systems
- Develop manpower to apply engineering concepts and techniques to the investigation and exploration of biological processes
- Train manpower capable of solving problems related to preventive medical approaches, automation based agricultural practices, environmental friendly bioprocesses and computational techniques for understanding biological systems.
The integrated dual degree programme in Bioengineering allows the students to go through a rigorous framework of core courses at Bachelors and Masters level and a comprehensive and detailed project and dissertation work which allows them to graduate in a period of 5 years with a B.Tech – M.Tech integrated dual degree. The programme also offers an opportunity for the students to tour through the design-innovation related courses like Reverse Engineering, Design Practicum, Interactive Socio-Technical Practicum offered to regular B.Tech students at IIT Mandi that will inculcate a sense of interest towards various application domains while getting familiarised with engineering problem-solving at the same time.
