Indian Institute of Technology Mandi will soon launch a new unique BTech-MTech integrated dual degree programme in Bioengineering from the academic year 2019-20, which aims to offer a wide range 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 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.
Dr Shubhajit Roy Chowdhury, Assistant Professor, School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, said, “Such a broad base bioengineering programme with specialisation appearing at a later stage allows the BTech students to explore their inner strengths and postpone the decision of specialising to later stages of the programme.”
The programme synergises engineering fundamentals with biological domain areas with the intent of generating engineering manpower endowed with a sufficient appreciation towards biology, claims the institute. 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 a 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 Biosystems. It will also help students in getting a better idea of various engineering aspects of the Biological systems.”