The Region Now Has Undergraduate, Pre- and Post-Doctoral Tissue Engineering Training Programs.
The McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine has initiated an educational program “Cellular Approaches to Tissue Engineering and Regeneration” (CATER). The goal of the CATER training program is to provide a solid foundation upon which to build a productive independent career in cellular and tissue based therapy for human disease and injury. This goal is accomplished via a highly coordinated and mentored interdisciplinary training program with a combination of required and elective courses, research activities, and specialized training opportunities and grants.
With the implementation of the CATER Program, this is the only region in the country that provides training in tissue engineering for Undergraduates (PTEI), Pre-Doctoral (McGowan Institute) and Post-Doctoral (PTEI) students that is supported through NIH training grants.
To help the region retain its best and brightest young people, The Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) developed and sponsors an annual summer internship Program (SIP) to showcase the many opportunities in biomedical research and industry that are available in this region. The SIP provides paid internships for undergraduate college students who are currently enrolled in or are graduating seniors of an undergraduate program, pursuing careers in medicine, research, bioengineering, computer science, the natural sciences, or related fields.
Supervised by research mentors at PTEI's affiliated universities and academic health centers, the students perform their own research and data analysis, and present their findings at a formal scientific poster session at the conclusion of the program. PTEI also organizes social and professional development activities throughout the summer. Through the program, the students gain valuable research experience, and make important contacts for future employment in the region.
Since SIP began in 1997, 243 students have taken part in the 10-week program that runs from early June to mid-August. A total of 24 interns are participating in the 2009 program.
The CATER Pre-Doctoral Training Program incorporates faculty from the Departments of Bioengineering Department and Pathology at the University of Pittsburgh, and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine to provide a unique educational and research experience at the leading edge of science with respect to cellular/tissue regeneration and engineering. This combination of training faculty, research interests and coursework provides a rich educational experience and more numerous training opportunities for the students than could be obtained within the individual university departments.
Students enter the CATER training program typically at the start of the second year of graduate school. At this point the student will have passed the first year core requirements from either the INTBP or Bioengineering programs and selected a laboratory and mentor for their thesis project. Since CATER training faculty reside in multiple departments within the university and school of medicine, and the CATER program is not central to any one department, this permits the student a much wider choice of options with which to pursue a PhD in tissue bioengineering and regeneration.
The Postdoctoral Fellowship Program represents the most advanced of all PTEI educational programs. By its nature, tissue engineering requires a highly interdisciplinary environment, which makes an ideal training ground for the tissue engineers of the future. The Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is of prime importance to the mission of PTEI, because it is often the final educational experience prior to a trainee’s independent scientific career and thus is a critical link between academic research laboratories and the larger world of independent academic research and commercialized biotechnology.
The Program draws upon experienced mentors from the PTEI-supported institutions and is unique in that each fellow is assigned a primary and a secondary mentor, chosen from the member institutions and based on the correspondence between the mentors’ expertise and the fellows’ prior training and desired focus within tissue engineering. The mentors include M.D.s, D.M.D.s, D.D.S.s, Ph.D.s, and individuals with dual degrees.