XTNC Education

The XTNC program has three main academic components: Mentored Laboratory Research Experiences, a semester-long Nanomedicine course, and hands-on Nanomedicine Workshops.

Mentored Laboratory Research Experiences are the cornerstone of XTNC, providing an environment where cross-disciplinary learning flourishes through co-mentoring and projects designed from the start to require interdisciplinary skill development. In 2015-16, there are four specifically designed XTNC research experiences, in which we require co-authoring, deliberately partnering a faculty member in the engineering or physical sciences from the Charles River Campus with a medical researcher or clinician from the Medical Campus. Our projects focus on areas of identifiable need in cancer nanotechnology.

In addition to the core curricula offered in departments with which students are affiliated, the trainees are expected to take the Nanomedicine: Principles and Applications course (ENG BE 745) as part of their electives. Graduate students take the course for credit, while postdoctoral fellows affiliated with this training program audit the course and serve as tutors. This further enriches the training and educational development of trainees at different levels.

Nanomedicine Workshops are used as platforms to further bridge trainees’ education in Nanotechnology and Cancer Biology. To date, we have offered workshops on Nanoparticle Synthesis and Characterization, Biomolecular Microarrays, and Advanced Imaging.