Bachelor program Biomedical Micro Engineering successfully started

Right off the bat, the recent­ly accred­it­ed bach­e­lor’s degree pro­gram “Bio­med­ical Micro Engi­neer­ing” has met with a good response and has excit­ed the first stu­dents who have opt­ed for this nation­wide unique study pro­gram in Zweibrück­en. The inter­dis­ci­pli­nary bach­e­lor’s pro­gram is aimed at any­one inter­est­ed in the appli­ca­tions of tech­nol­o­gy in biol­o­gy and med­i­cine. Appli­ca­tions are now open for the win­ter semes­ter 2022/23.

Med­ical tech­nol­o­gy is becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant as more and more devices for diag­nos­tics and ther­a­py come onto the mar­ket. In the process, the tech­nol­o­gy required for this is becom­ing more and more sophis­ti­cat­ed and requires expert knowl­edge and com­pe­ten­cies from dif­fer­ent fields. One trend is toward more com­pact devices that can be used in the doc­tor’s office or even at home, be it the blood glu­cose meter, the pace­mak­er or even the micro­cam­era that trav­els through the body in the form of a pill. These minia­tur­ized devices, or “microsys­tems”, which have become indis­pens­able in med­ical tech­nol­o­gy, also include the microchip, for exam­ple, which sends patients’ vital data direct­ly to the doc­tor’s office.

This is pre­cise­ly where the Bio­med­ical Micro Engi­neer­ing pro­gram comes in: It trains engi­neers who can devel­op microsys­tems for bio­med­ical appli­ca­tions, both inde­pen­dent­ly and in a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary team of experts. To this end, stu­dents first build up a sound basic knowl­edge of STEM sub­jects in their first semes­ters. This is fol­lowed by the basics of bio­med­i­cine and med­ical tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing legal, eco­nom­ic and IT aspects. In the lat­er course, there are exten­sive elec­tive options that allow stu­dents to set their own indi­vid­ual focus and spe­cial­iza­tion. In addi­tion, cur­rent inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research top­ics rang­ing from biosen­sors and microflu­idics to arti­fi­cial organs are inte­grat­ed into the course. The prac­ti­cal phase and bach­e­lor’s the­sis take place in the last semes­ter and can also be com­plet­ed exter­nal­ly, e.g. at a research insti­tu­tion or a com­pa­ny in Ger­many or abroad.

“We are very sat­is­fied with the num­ber of first-year stu­dents and receive extreme­ly pos­i­tive feed­back from the stu­dents. Above all, the points of equip­ment, study con­tent and dig­i­tal study­ing are praised.”

- Prof. Dr. Alex­ey Tarasov, Direc­tor of Studies

The Zweibrück­en cam­pus offers excel­lent tech­ni­cal equip­ment for work­ing in the micro and even nano range. For exam­ple, a clean room is also avail­able in which the very small­est dust par­ti­cles can be fil­tered out of the air. Learn­ing close to research through numer­ous lab­o­ra­to­ries and stu­dent work with­in the frame­work of cur­rent research projects char­ac­ter­ize the stud­ies just as much as per­son­al sup­port and short dis­tances. The city of Zweibrück­en also pro­vides young peo­ple with liv­able and afford­able hous­ing and liv­ing space.

Grad­u­ates with a Bach­e­lor of Engi­neer­ing degree have a broad inter­dis­ci­pli­nary qual­i­fi­ca­tion that pre­pares them for many jobs, espe­cial­ly in the med­ical tech­nol­o­gy indus­try: from research and devel­op­ment to tech­ni­cal sup­port and prod­uct man­age­ment. Alter­na­tive­ly, grad­u­ates can con­tin­ue their aca­d­e­m­ic career with a tai­lor-made Mas­ter’s pro­gram in Zweibrück­en: The upcom­ing con­sec­u­tive mas­ter’s pro­gram will opti­mal­ly deep­en the bio­med­ical and tech­ni­cal con­tent of the cur­rent bach­e­lor’s pro­gram and also open up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a sub­se­quent doctorate.