Description :  The growth in importance of the fields of micromanufacturing and nanoengineering demand a highly trained workforce that is capable of performing research in these fields. Louisiana Tech University is in the unique position of being able to interface micro and nanoengineering through its Institute for Micromanufacturing and its ongoing research in layer-by-layer assembly. Layer-by-layer assembly is the construction of nanometer-scale coating by the adsorption of alternately charged polyions, and it can be used on arbitrarily-shaped objects. One example of its use is the construction of nano-coated microspheres for targeted drug delivery in which the nanocoating defines both the diffusion of the drug and the surface characteristics that provide targeting. Through the recently established Center for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Louisiana Tech can help to teach students about the practical aspects of bringing a micro/nanoengineered product to market. Ten students per year over a 10 week period in the summer will receive a research experience in micro and nanoengineering, including more formal training on engineering research issues. The program will attempt to increase participants’ awareness of issues related to reporting, patenting, and marketing of research results. The targeted participants are students at universities within a 250 mile radius of Louisiana Tech who are in undergraduate programs in engineering or the sciences, who maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average (on a four point scale), and who have taken at least eight semester hours of calculus. Over the 10-week experience, the students will achieve the following outcomes: 1. Answer a specific question through work in the laboratory. 2. Learn how to plan, carry out, and report a research project. 3. Explain how ethical issues in engineering research relate to their projects. 4. Describe the equipment they are using and the uses of this equipment. 5. Describe how their projects are related to other projects in the same laboratory. 5. Describe the laboratories that the other REU students are involved in. 7. Write up their projects in professional reports. 8. Present their projects orally with PowerPoint presentations. 9. Devise, plan, and describe the next logical stage in the research project.

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Principal Investigator:  Jones, Steven  --  Biomedical Engineering

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Collaborators:  

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Funding Agencies:  National Science Foundation

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Amount Awarded:  $254,087

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Start Period:  04/01/2003

End Period:  03/31/2006