Rice wins $2.2M for undergrad global heal...( HOUSTON Rice University's plans to off...),Health

HOUSTON Rice University's plans to offer undergraduate students with more real-world design challenges got a major boost today from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which awarded the university $2.2 million to develop a four-year biomedical training program that will challenge Rice's students to solve healthcare problems in the developing world. The program, Beyond Traditional Borders, is designed to help students reach beyond traditional geographic and disciplinary boundaries in addressing these challenges.

"Rice students are extremely dedicated and focused, and this program is designed to tap their enthusiasm and encourage them to solve problems that affect the health and well-being of millions of impoverished people," said bioengineer Rebecca Richards-Kortum, leader of the new program. Together with Dr. Michele Follen of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Richards-Kortum pioneered the concept for the Beyond Traditional Borders in a course she has taught since 2001 called Bioengineering and World Health, which was developed with support from the HHMI Professor Program.

Richards-Kortum, the chair of Rice's Department of Bioengineering and the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, said her class last year worked directly with physicians at Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, which operates pediatric AIDS clinics throughout Africa and Eastern Europe.

"The problems we're asked to solve require more than just innovative technology, they require a great deal of thought about the cultural, economic and social realities that doctors face every day in the developing world," Richards-Kortum said. "For example, some African children with AIDS need anti-retroviral drugs that must be refrigerated, yet they live in villages without electricity and in some cases they live so far from a clinic that they must take home a 30-day supply every time they see the doctor.

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Contact: Jade Boyd
jadeboyd@rice.edu
713-348-6778
Rice University
1-Jun-2006

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