Integrating engineering and biology in a laboratory-based curriculum

"Stepping into the 21st century, integrating biology and technology is a global trend to improve our quality of lifeand business efficiency. With the growing number of biotechnology-related companies in Hong Kong, includingmainly healthcare-related industries with business on pharmaceuticals, medical derives and diagnostics products,an educational platform to support this biotechnology infrastructure is a cornerstone to upgrade the biotechnologyindustry in Hong Kong. Inspiring by the university’s vision of discovery and innovation, we have successfullyestablished a preliminary laboratory-based curriculum for multidisciplinary studies of brain-machine interface forundergraduate students. A second phase development of the laboratory-based curriculum is imperative to enhancethe learning activities for students by integrating engineering and biotechnology applications. This proposal aimsto extend the development of a multidisciplinary project-based curriculum by integrating biological laboratory taskcomponents into an engineering laboratory. With this laboratory and project-based curriculum, students will beable to understand the basic working principles behind a brain-machine interface (BMI), and gain hands-onexperience of designing and/or operating a BMI device."