Edwards Summer Undergraduate Research Program

July 8, 2021/in Training Programs

Edwards Summer Undergraduate Research Program

The Edwards Lifesciences Summer Undergraduate Research Program (E-SURP) provides training for UCI undergraduates who are conducting summer research projects under the guidance of UCI faculty mentors who are associated with the Edwards Lifesciences Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center (CIRC). The program offers students the opportunity to become immersed in a cardiovascular-related research topic for a full-time ten-week period, or the equivalent of 400 hours.

University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-5670
cardio@uci.edu

The Edwards Lifesciences Summer Undergraduate Research Program (E-SURP) provides training for UCI undergraduates who are conducting summer research projects under the guidance of UCI faculty mentors who are associated with the Edwards Lifesciences Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center. The program offers students the opportunity to become immersed in a cardiovascular-related research topic for a full-time ten-week period, or the equivalent of 400 hours.

Students can apply for the 2022 Summer program by submitting an application using the link. Applicants will need to provide a brief description of their research project and a letter of support from their faculty mentor. E-SURP is open to all non-graduating (must be a returning student) UCI undergraduates who are in good academic standing and who are conducting their research in a CIRC faculty lab.

Students must present their summer research project at the October 2022 Heart to Heart Training Club. This annual event is a favorite among CIRC members as faculty, students, and researchers are often impressed by the research conducted by the E-SURP participants.

Students who participate the E-SURP Program can still enroll in summer courses, upon receiving approval from their faculty mentors, as long as they meet the 400-hour minimum requirement. E-SURP is administered by the Edwards Lifesciences Cardiovascular innovation and Research Center.

E-SURP Application

CardioStart

July 8, 2021/in Training Programs

CardioStart

Cardiovascular Program for High School Students

Do you love science?

Have you ever wanted to see and work with a live cell? Do you find yourself asking questions beyond the scope of your classes?

Would you like to know what it is like to work in a tissue-engineering laboratory? Do you want to experience the awe of discovery?

Then you are the right person for the CardioStart program!

The CardioStart Program for high school students is a progressive set of online workshops with interactive assessments that will enrich students’ knowledge of tissue and cardiac engineering. The workshops and assessments will be available 24/7 making this enhanced learning platform convenient for all students. To supplement the workshops, graduate students or a faculty member will be available to answer questions throughout the duration of the program and will be holding weekly office hours via Zoom to facilitate discussion and interaction between students. There is also a possibility of a hands-on laboratory opportunity in the future.

Students who have participated in the CardioStart Program for high school students have been accepted to universities such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, Pepperdine, University of Chicago, and Rice University.

Apply to the Program

If you are interested in applying to the CardioStart program, please complete the questions on this form link.

After you submit the form, a box will appear indicating your status. If you qualify for the program, the box will also contain a registration code for you to use to sign into the google classroom. Please be prepared to write down the registration code.

You can click here to enter google classroom.

No Tuition – CardioStart is Free

There is no tuition charge thanks to the generous support of the Edwards Lifesciences Foundation Cardiovascular Innovation and Research Center (CIRC) and the UCI Henry Samueli School of Engineering Office of Access and Inclusion.

Eligibility Requirements

You must be at least 14 years of age or enrolled in high school to be eligible to participate.
You must be respectful and mature.

Program Schedule

Online workshops available 24/7
Office hours available throughout the program

More Information

For more information or to apply to this program, please email cardio@uci.edu.

Graduate CARE Program

July 8, 2021/in Fellowships, Training Programs

Cardiovascular Applied Research and Entrepreneurship

Overview Prerequisites Program Outline Training Faculty

The underlying premise, which forms the foundation of this training program, is a shortage of highly trained scientists with cross-training in three synergistic disciplines: 1) engineering, 2) cardiovascular science, and 3) entrepreneurship. Our primary goal is to train a relatively small number of highly qualified individuals who can produce quality and impactful research in cardiovascular science and technology. Additionally, trainees will also develop an enhanced skill set to assess the translational potential of cardiovascular research, and will thus be able to communicate more effectively with entrepreneurial professionals. This level of “fluency” in entrepreneurship is a unique feature of our training program. Through this fluency, the training program is able to accelerate the development of cardiovascular technology to treat and diagnose cardiovascular disease. We refer to our program as Cardiovascular Applied Research and Entrepreneurship (CARE).

Background

The current training paradigm for individuals able to engineer new cardiovascular technology has two typical pathways: clinical training or formal education as an engineer. Clinical training is demanding and rightly focuses on training individuals who deliver cardiovascular healthcare. Cardiovascular clinicians are normally the first to recognize a shortcoming in available technology, but generally do not have the skill or training in engineering or business.

When receiving formal training as an engineer (e.g., biomedical engineering) at bachelors through doctoral levels, an individuals’ core “language” is shaped by the vocabulary of engineering science and design principles with some limited understanding of the cardiovascular system. Often this individual is the first to recognize an exciting new technology, but lacks the business acumen or knowledge of clinical applications to understand the translational potential.

The CARE Training Program is designed to bridge the knowledge and fluency gaps not only between these two current traditional pathways, but also in the area of entrepreneurship. The expectation is that these individuals will produce quality and impactful research in cardiovascular science and technology, as well as develop an enhanced skill set to assess the translational potential of cardiovascular research, and will thus be able to communicate more effectively with entrepreneurial professionals.

To apply to the program please find the application link on the Program Outline page.

Pre-Program Requirements

Year 1 of the Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Engineering or the equivalent

Pre- Program Requirements
(Year 1 of the Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Engineering or the equivalent)

All students interested applying for the CARE Training Program must fulfill the following requirements:

Be accepted to the Ph.D. program in Biomedical Engineering (other comparable programs will be considered)
Be a U.S. Citizen or permanent resident. Under the federal training grant guidelines, international students are not eligible for this training program.
Match with a CARE Training Faculty Member by the end of year 1 of the Ph.D. Program.
Successfully complete all required coursework (or the equivalent) for first year Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. students.
Pass the preliminary examination at the end of year 1 of the Ph.D. Program. Students may not be admitted to the CARE program without passing the preliminary examination.
Apply to the CARE Program and be interviewed by the required due dates.

Year 1 | CARE Training Program

Year 2 of the Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Engineering

The first year of the CARE Training Program is outlined as follows:

Coursework:
BME298 – Seminars in Biomedical Engineering
PH290 – Foundations of Clinical and Translational Science
BME212 – Cardiovascular Mechanobiology
Successfully complete the Clinical Cardiology Short Course
Attend a minimum of nine sessions of the Heart to Heart Training Club
Apply for individual graduate training fellowship from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, or the American Heart Association
Attend and present at annual CARE retreat

Year 2 | CARE Training Program

Year 3 of the Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Engineering

The second year of the CARE Training Program is outlined as follows:

Coursework:
MMG250 – Responsible Conduct of Research (must attend all sessions)
BME295 – Socratic Seminar Engineering and Entrepreneurship
Attend a minimum of nine sessions of the Heart to Heart Training Club
Participate in the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition through the Paul Merage School’s Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship through at least Phase 1 of the competition, including the corresponding competition workshops.
Attend and present at annual CARE retreat

Years 3 and 4 | CARE Training Program

Years 4 and 5 of the Ph.D. Program in Biomedical Engineering

The third and fourth years of the CARE Training Program are outlined as follows:

Complete the dissertation work leading to the PhD in Biomedical Engineering.
Formal presentation in the Department of Biomedical Engineering weekly seminar series. This feature serves as an intermediate checkpoint between the qualifying exam (end of year 2 of the Ph.D. program) and defending the dissertation, and provides a formal opportunity for the interdisciplinary thesis committee to interact and discuss progress. At least two additional members from the trainee’s thesis committee (besides the primary advisor) must be in attendance at the seminar.
Defend dissertation leading to the Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering.

Training Faculty

Elliot Botvinick, Ph.D.

CIRC Associate Director
Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Department of Surgery

Lab Website

Zhongping Chen, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Naomi Chesler, Ph.D.

CIRC Director
Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Bernard Choi, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Surgery
School of Medicine

Lab Website

Timothy Downing, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Anna Grosberg, Ph.D.

Core Lab Faculty Director
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

James Hicks, Ph.D.

Professor
Department Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Christopher CW Hughes, Ph.D.

Chancellor's Professor
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Michelle Khine, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Wendy Liu, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Sabee Molloi, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Radiological Sciences
School of Medicine

Lab Website

Pim Oomen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering

Lab Website

Weian Zhao, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center
Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Lab Website

Heart-to-Heart Training Club

January 30, 2021/in Training Programs

Heart-to-Heart Training Club

First launched in December 2010, the “Heart-to-Heart” training club was designed as a mechanism to enhance knowledge, communication, and collaboration amongst the cardiovascular labs on campus through a formal presentation followed by informal discussion and networking. The club also serves to improve oral communication and presentation skills, and stimulate cohesion within the training program between the pre-doctoral and cardiology fellow tracks. The training club is held on the second Tuesday of each month over the lunch hour PDT. Typically, a trainee from a campus lab presents stumbling blocks of their project and receives suggestions on how they might progress through these obstacles, a faculty member presents a new project idea to get feedback from the trainees and faculty in the other cardiovascular labs, or we invite a special guest speaker from either industry or a cardiovascular lab from another university to present.

Jun

Heart to Heart Training Club

This month’s presenter is Professor Sara Mednick from the Department of Cognitive Sciences her...

The training club meets during the lunch hour (12:00pm -1:00pm) on the second Tuesday of the month. CIRC provides a heart-healthy lunch. Participation in the training club is limited to CIRC core and affiliate faculty members and their students.

Please note that all sessions of the 2021 – 2022 academic year will be held via zoom.

For information on becoming a member, please review the CIRC Affiliate Member Guidelines and complete the CIRC Affiliate Member Application.

Recently, mission of the training club has expanded to include a variety of topics from outside sources to further enrich the trainees’ education and to give them the opportunity to be exposed the wide variety of career options. Topics such as Unmet Needs in Clinical Cardiology, Understanding Intellectual Property Law, and Effectively Communicating With Your Target Audience: The Savvy Scientist, have all been presented by speakers outside of the CIRC.