Advanced Studies in Biomedical Micro- and Nanodevices, At least 80 cr

The biomedical engineering industry is an increasingly important, global high-tech sector. In Finland, the HealthTech industry is especially strong. With the emergence of numerous small enterprises, the fields of biomedical sciences and engineering are rapidly expanding and offer diverse career options. This programme provides you with a solid understanding of the challenges related to biomedical and health sciences. You will become familiar with advanced technologies at the interface between engineering and health sciences and can develop innovative solutions to solve these challenges. You will be able to demonstrate critical thinking and professionalism and pursue a career in industry, a hospital or continue your studies towards a doctoral degree. You may also be a natural-born entrepreneur and launch your own start-up.

The major Biomedical Micro- and Nanodevices focuses on biomedical devices and systems with micro- and nanoscale components, including microsensors, microactuators, microrobots, microfluidics, micro-optics as well as wireless signal and power transfer technologies. If you want to work on e.g. portable devices, wearables, biosensors, or microfluidic chips, this is a good major for you. In this major, you will learn practical skills in cleanroom microfabrication, characterization of microsensors and actuators, microscopy, and theoretical background to understand physics at the microscale.

After you graduate with this major, your future job might be to develop a wearable sensor device for monitoring physiological signals, targeting either patient monitoring or wellness tracking applications. Or you might continue career in academia, researching organ-on-a-chip type of devices. Organ-on-a-chip devices are microfluidic cell culture chips, mimicking the activities of entire organs and thus providing a novel approach for developing new medicines, understanding disease mechanisms, and studying toxicological effects of chemical compounds in vitro. The job market prospects for microtechnologies in Europe remains strong. Recently, EU has launched the European Chips Act, which aims to invest €43 billion in the field, meaning there will be many job openings in related fields within the near future.

Miniaturisation has been one of the important technological megatrends in the past decades. Miniaturisation is a key approach to make devices and processes sustainable: by making devices and components smaller, we can make more measurements by using smaller amounts of reagents and samples, more computations with less energy, obtain more data in a shorter time, and make more devices from the same amount of raw materials.

Within Finland, this major is unique in its interdisciplinarity: you learn the fundamentals of microsystems technology but also its biomedical applications in one whole. This gives you a strong background for designing micro- and nanodevices, but also to understand how these devices can be used in biomedical applications to the benefit of the patient or the user. We foster close collaboration between engineering professionals, life scientists and clinicians, and therefore provide optimal exposure for the students taking part in the degree programme. Our excellent basic and translational (from laboratory to clinic) research is recognised worldwide.

The aim of the major in Biomedical Micro- and Nanodevices is to provide students with a competitive advantage in their careers by introducing them into this rapidly growing field. The goal is that students will be able to recognize the new opportunities provided by microsystems technologies in cell technologies and tissue engineering, as well as understand the current limits such that they can bring added value with this new technology in their future careers for example in product development.

After completing the study module,
- Students are able to design, model, simulate, test and apply microsensors, microactuators, microfluidic and soft-robotic structures and understands their physical principles and the specifications of corresponding commercial products.
- Students understand the basic principles of microfabrication, understand the potential and limitations of the different methods and can design simple fabrication processes.
- Students have knowledge of the characterization methods of microscale components, ability to use basic device and concept of scaling effects in microtechnology.
- Students have the ability to design, model, simulate, test and apply implantable and body-centric antennas and RFID-based wireless power transfer systems.
- Students have the ability to combine microfabrication techniques with biomedical engineering for biomedical applications such as cell technologies and physiological measurements.