Nanobiology Training Program Curriculum

The Nanobiology Training Program (NBTP) is designed to develop scientists who can excel at interdisciplinary nanobiology research. This goal is ambitious, since integrating diverse subject matter can be a daunting task. Researchers in interdisciplinary settings must master more than a single, traditional core area. They must be able to effectively translate their ideas and perspectives for colleagues with different disciplinary backgrounds. A true interdisciplinary scientist must also ultimately integrate the perspectives of many disciplines to solve problems and shape a new area of science. This last task requires that trainees be introduced to the basic principles of a new interdisciplinary area. Once trainees have developed these skills, they will be given opportunities to shape the emerging discipline of nanobiology and through these leadership activities begin to identify themselves as bionanoscientists.

To meet specific training goals, a broad set of courses, required group activities, and research activities are being developed.

 
Educational Process

The educational process in the training program has three major components: 

 i) Required discipline- specific and interdisciplinary coursework,
ii) NBTP-sponsored or required group training activities, and
iii) original thesis research in nanobiology.

In addition, each student and postdoctoral fellow in the dual mentored program will do a mini-sabbatical or internship in the secondary mentor’s laboratory. This unique feature will ensure a truly interdisciplinary educational opportunity. These internships will last 2-6 months and provide the students with an opportunity to learn techniques and the culture of a complementary laboratory.

Role of Coursework

A central feature of this program is the use of disciplinary and interdisciplinary course offerings to provide rigorous classroom training to trainees. A strong background in core discipline fundamentals is the departure point for all interdisciplinary scientists early in the development of a field. When trainees come together in collaborative research teams, they are often the only representative of a particular discipline. In such a rarified environment, it is absolutely essential that researchers possess complete knowledge of their subject matter. NBTP trainees will develop this expertise in core coursework available within their home departments and the broader institutional setting.

Interdisciplinary scientists must also have sufficient experience in translating the language and perspectives of one discipline into another. Rather than permitting students to choose electives from any area, NBTP will require trainees to elect at least three complementary area courses in their second year of coursework. For example, a materials chemist will be required to take courses in biochemistry and biology, whereas a biochemist will take courses in surface science or imaging. By developing proficiency in a second technical area, students will acquire firsthand experience in different scientific areas with different languages and distinct scientific cultures. New interdisciplinary courses designed for NBTP trainees will develop the skills to manage research at new interfaces. Within these courses, mentors will organize the new discipline of nanobiology and create a common language for all NBTP participants.

Finally, a Capstone Course required in the fourth year, will provide trainees with the opportunity to mold the emerging nanobiology area through team projects and curriculum development activities. Capstone Course results will provide feedback into the NBTP’s developing nanobiology curriculum.

Flexibility is crucial to this program, and the NBTP steering committee will meet at least quarterly to review available course offerings. This group will implement content changes and updates, recruit faculty to teach lectures in their areas of expertise and monitor performance of students and teachers. This group will also incorporate additions to the core nano-biology classes, integrating feedback from the Capstone Course as the program develops. The steering committee will convene meetings of NBTP faculty to coordinate relevant course offerings in the partner institutions, and to focus group effort on the key NBTP core courses as the need arises.

The table below shows a typical sequence without specific detail concerning electives.

Just as entering graduate students may occasionally require remedial work in areas of their chosen discipline, such preparation may be required for students entering the NBTP. For instance, Biology students may need exposure to physical chemistry and/or surface science. Similarly, students in Chemistry may require biology and biochemistry course work.

Core Nanobiology Sequence

The required courses for all trainees are the two-course sequence in nanobiology and the Capstone Course. These two new nanobiology courses will illustrate the principles of nanobiology through exploration of a central topic from the focus areas of different NBTP faculty mentors.

The first course is titled “Nanobiology I: Self-assembly Across Nanoscience and Biology” and focuses on the formation of complex nanostructures in both biological and nanoscale systems. It includes elements of nanochemistry and supramolecular assembly, structural biology and biological machines, and biomaterials. The course will be organized by the various length scales in nanobiological materials. At the molecular level, artificially prepared bionanostructures such as biochips, high biopolymers, and colloids will be introduced. These lectures will be interspersed with a discussion of biomolecular structure and folding, sampling techniques and kinetics. Self-assembly processes will be examined in natural structures such as viruses, filaments, bundles, tubes, and machines as well as artificial materials such as colloids. The course will conclude with an examination of the macroscopic functions of self-assembled materials — for example, the mechanical strength of silk or collagen as compared to ropes of single walled carbon nanotubes. This course will introduce students to the broad synthetic/composition and structural issues in nanobiology and will model an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to scientific problem solving.

The second course is titled “Nanobiology II: Characterizing, Visualizing and Designing Nanoscale Machines.” Whereas the first course emphasizes material properties and formation, the second course will focus on the challenges of understanding, simulating, and imaging nanoscale structures at the interface of biology and materials science to comprehend their functions. Lectures will be oriented around specific problems, such as the determination of an antibody protein’s structure and function near a high tech surface, and will illustrate how the tools of both nanoscience and bioscience are required for progress.

Nanobiology Classes Beyond Year 3

The training program has been intentionally designed to increase its offerings of nanobiology courses as the program evolves; one new course will be added roughly yearly to the roster of training courses so that within five years a curriculum will be created to address the needs of nanobiologists. A flexible approach to course programming allows direct response to the particular research interests of early trainees. Examples of these more specialized nanobiology courses include (the number of hours for each is approximately half of a full one-semester course): Imaging nanobiological structures — A lab practicum (Chiu, Colvin, Hafner); Imaging nanobiological structures — Visualization (Chiu, Colvin, Hafner); Computational nanobiology (Pettitt, Briggs, Ma, Ludtke, Wriggers); Nanobiological engineering for medicine (Gao, Pettitt).

Capstone Course in Nanobiology

In their fourth year, predoctoral trainees will be required to participate in a Capstone Course in Nanobiology. The unusual choice of requiring a course late in the graduate career is motivated by the recognition that trainees can be the best architects of this new interdisciplinary area. As first generation nanobiologists, they will have a unique perspective on the intellectual content of nanobiology. This Capstone Course will formalize the experience of nanobiology for trainees, as 2-3 person teams will be challenged to design modules for nanobiology courses, workshops, or tutorials useful for future generations of trainees. Their designs will feed into course offerings and selections described in the previous section.

Course Requirements of Ph.D. Granting Units

In some cases, the course requirements of the student’s home department will overlap NBTP requirements, but there will be additional requirements to meet in every case. For example, BCM NBTP students must meet a requirement to take a total of 30 hours of didactic coursework, which includes two required courses in Molecular Biophysics and Computational Mathematics for Biologists and Topics in Structural and Computational Biology, a course in computational or physical science, and at least three advanced courses in biological sciences. In addition, these students will meet the NBTP requirements for cross-training. RU  biology and biochemistry students in biophysics laboratories will take required courses, including research design and writing, seminar courses and a minimum of two advanced biology courses and will also meet the NBTP requirements for additional courses. At UH the students in chemistry will meet the departmental requirements, but they will also have to meet NBTP requirements in a cross-field. Individual advising for curricular requirements will ensure the necessary broad exposure for each student.

Elective Courses

In meeting the credit requirements of all participating departments, students will have many elective courses from which to choose. The fact that students may take for credit, without additional tuition costs, courses at partner institutions is an important feature of the elective offerings. Trainees are encouraged to select, and do take courses in the major participating departments at RU and UH, as well as courses offered by Departments of Chemical Engineering, Physics, Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, and Mathematics.

Oversight of Didactic Training

The Nanobiology Training Program steering committee will meet annually with students and make specific suggestions about coursework appropriate to their background and research interests. If needed, students will be directed to take undergraduate courses in preparation of advanced graduate work. For example, a student with an undergraduate Biology or Bioengineering major who has not taken Physical Chemistry, would be advised to take this course in preparation for the Nanobiology courses. Every semester, the administrative staff and Director will review the trainee’s progress in fulfilling their coursework, contacting students and mentors as needed to remind them of requirements. Coursework performance will be evaluated annually during the progress review with each trainee and the trainee’s mentors.

Future Curriculum Development

One of our ongoing goals for NBTP is to continue to develop innovative and flexible approaches to education in the emerging discipline of nanobiology and nanomedicine. We will participate in these endeavors through the generation of textbooks in nanoscience and engineering, updates in core biology and bioengineering courses to include examples of nanobiology, as well as other approaches that rely on virtual lectures, problem sets, and textbooks accessible via web-based applications. This process will be facilitated by two ongoing efforts: the NSF-funded development of a nanoscience and bioengineering curriculum through the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) directed by Dr. Vicki Colvin at RU, and the ongoing Connexions project at RU and collaborating institutions. The latter is aimed at the collaborative, dynamic, and interactive development of web-based modular course materials. Pettitt is an external advisor for the Rice Bioinformatics course development which uses Connexions.

Required Group Training Activities

An important benefit of our multi-departmental and cross-institutional training grant is that it will serve as a nucleus for the organization of cooperative training activities. Attendance, required of NBTP-supported trainees, will include efforts to engage wide participation of all the local communities that are relevant to this training program.

Seminar and Journal Club

All NBTP trainees will attend a weekly seminar series jointly sponsored by NBTP, CNST, CBEN, NCMI, IMD, and the Keck Center. Students will enroll in this course for credit. Following class, refreshments (pizza and drinks) will be provided to facilitate social interaction and discussion of seminar contents by the trainees, faculty, and other researchers in attendance. Speakers will include local faculty, advanced trainees and national or international researchers in biophysics, nanoscience or biotechnology. Faculty and trainees unable to meet at RU will participate by live webcasting, an arrangement that has been successful for the past two years. In addition to this consistent weekly series, there are also numerous seminars in the biological applications of nanotechnology or study of nanoscale structures in biology that will be presented at participating institutions and jointly sponsored by NBTP. These will be advertised to all NBTP faculty and trainees. Trainee attendance will be required.

Retreats - Keck Annual Research Conference

On a yearly basis, NBTP will organize a one-day research conference, typically held at an off-site location to encourage all-day faculty participation. All trainees will attend and present poster sessions that compete for awards. Additionally, talks by leading researchers in selected areas of nanoscale science, biophysics, and nanobiology will be presented. The quality of student research and presentations is anticipated to compare favorably to that of national meetings of research societies.

Symposia

NBTP will be a joint sponsor of symposia in nanoscale science, biophysics and nanobiology in collaboration with the affiliated Centers of our faculty as described in Figure 1. These will feature high profile national and international speakers and poster sessions where trainees have an opportunity to discuss their work with these well known scientific leaders, as well as with local biophysicists, bioengineers and nanoscientists. The trainees will be required to attend and present posters as well, with required attendance from NBTP faculty.

Workshops

NBTP will also sponsor workshops in important and emerging areas of nanomedicine and bionanotechnology in collaboration with the affiliated Centers of our faculty as described in Figure 1. Such workshops provide an important source of nanobiology breadth for our post-doctoral trainees. Didactic lectures and hands-on practical exercises, taught by local and national experts, will be featured. The Techniques in Surface Science course at UH and the Cryo-EM Workshop are examples.

Trainee Presentations

NBTP will join forces with the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology to hold monthly research presentations by and for trainees, with participation by Steering Committee members and mentors. These are scheduled in association with the weekly seminar/journal club series during the academic year to simplify scheduling, and include a meal and drinks for the NBTP participants. Each trainee thus has an annual opportunity (requirement) to glean experience from presentation of their work to a diverse, supportive group of nanoscientists, biologists, and bioengineers, and fellow trainees. Trainees will also become familiar with the broad range of research included in NBTP throughout the year.

National Meetings

Students are expected to attend a national meeting of comparable scope to an ACS, APS or Biophysical Society meeting at least twice during their three-year training period. Presentation of their research and national level contact with world-class scientific leaders and their own peers is important in rounding out their training. Partial support of associated travel expenses are requested in the budget.

Research Opportunities

NBTP students will spend by far the greatest part of their training time engaged in original cutting-edge nanobiology research. Their work is anticipated to culminate in peer-reviewed publications and first-class dissertations. The NBTP research component is at the heart of the training program, and one of its greatest strengths. The high-quality and diverse research programs described above provide outstanding opportunities for conducting high impact original research and directly experiencing interdisciplinary research in the areas of nanobiology specialization.

Students in all programs will rotate in laboratories of their choice during their first year, select a primary and secondary mentor, and choose a thesis research area before applying for NBTP support at the end of their first year. Only projects with actively involved mentors from different disciplines will be considered for funding. Cross-institutional rotations and joint mentorships are common in the training programs run by the Gulf Coast Consortia, and we expect the NBTP to have similar success.

An innovative mechanism in achieving the interdisciplinary training of NBTP trainee will be the required sabbatical in the co-mentor’s laboratory. This sabbatical will require trainees to physically locate in their co-mentor’s laboratory for two to six months. Typically occurring in year three for pre-doctoral students, and after the first year for post-doctoral trainees, this early sabbatical will provide students with direct experience in a different research environment. By mastering another disciplinary environment, and retaining nanobiology research continuity, students will extend their research identity beyond core discipline lines to that of a nanobiologist.

The nanobiology research opportunities provided to NBTP trainees as a whole will be unmatched by any program in the country. NBTP faculty direct over fifty state-of-the-art laboratories conducting research in core nanobiology areas. All major areas of modern nanoscience, structural biology and bioengineering are represented, as well as some unique areas available at few other institutions. On the biological side, BCM, by itself, is ranked as having the highest basic biological science research funding level of any educational institution in the U.S., and RU, UH, and UT-H contribute substantial strength in  key biological areas for this program. A subset of the specialized instrumentation available is listed under the preceding section on Resources. NTBP offers a strong concentration of nanomaterials science laboratories as well as eight locally available laboratories engaged in electron cryomicroscopy, with the NCMI at BCM providing a strong force in this area. The total available resources and number of laboratories engaged in NMR and other types of spectroscopy are also exceptional. The combined research facilities of BCM, RU, UH, and UT-H with others in the Texas Medical Center provide this training program with the resources necessary to establish the emerging field of nanobiology.

Career Development

One of NBTP’s central goals is to ensure that all trainees secure and pursue successful careers using research skills learned as part of our educational process. To this end, trainees receive career development guidance through focused and ongoing programs. Throughout their years of training, trainees are exposed to a variety of academic environments. As a result of the different academic institutions involved in the program (private and public medical schools and comprehensive universities; schools with and without large undergraduate enrollment and professional programs) and through involvement in organizing group activities and mentor counseling, students will assimilate a core understanding of the academic job market and acquire preparatory skills to enter it. Although our trainees develop considerable career understanding throughout this process, a concerted effort to provide additional career guidance and preparation will be made. Courses taken by trainees in each institution prepare students to present their work to an audience and prepare competitive research grant proposals. Career development has high priority in the yearly meetings between the Steering Committee and each trainee. Students are questioned regarding career interests and given guidance on meeting their goals. Mentors describe their career guidance efforts and are urged to higher connectivity with trainees. Regularly featured at our symposia, retreats, seminars, and workshops are representatives from industry and government agencies, as well as academic scientists. Students are given opportunities to learn about career options in many areas. Teaching experience and participation opportunities in K-12 outreach programs are provided for all trainees. BCM presents a Graduate Career Day yearly, which includes presentations on industrial career paths, alternative and academic careers, and provides workshops in resume and CV presentation.

Monitoring of Student Progress

Required meetings between the Nanobiology Training Program Steering Committee members (two per participating institution) and each trainee and his/her mentors will occur annually. The trainee’s progress in completing coursework requirements and thesis research will be reviewed, and guidelines for future progress established. Any trainee and mentor problems will be examined. Career plans are to be discussed and career advice provided by the Steering Committee. The goal, to provide the students with any needed guidance and support, will help facilitate successful NBTP training program completion. On rare occasions, students making unsatisfactory progress or not attempting to meet program requirements may have their support terminated by consensus of the Steering Committee.