Master of Biomedical Engineering

This subject introduces students to human anatomy and physiology relevant to bioengineering applications, including medical devices and technology that overcomes physical disabilities. Students will be introduced to anatomical terminology, the structure and appearance of cells and tissues, biomedical engineering technologies, quantitative measurements and experimental techniques used to investigate the structure and function of different tissues, organs and organ systems. The anatomy and physiology taught in this subject may include the musculoskeletal system, sensory systems, neural systems and the cardiovascular system.

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This subject aims to introduce students to the application of programming and computational methods to solve problems in the context of bioengineering research and industry. It introduces students to the fundamentals of software programming and computational methods via the use of programming languages. These techniques will be explored in the context of problems drawn from different aspects of bioengineering including, but not restricted to, fluid mechanics, image processing, electromagnetism, control systems, biomechanics, biomaterials, biosignals and clinical statistics.

Please view this video for further information: Applied Computation in Bioengineering

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AIMS

This subject covers fundamental principles of electronic circuits, including how to design and analyse simple circuits, with example applications to biomedical problems. Also covered is biosignal analysis, in which students are taught the fundamentals of signal processing, including how to build simple signal models of a biological system, and how to measure and analyse system performance.

In the laboratories, students will learn how to build and analyse simple electronic circuits, as well as how to simulate and measure biosignals. Students will learn about laboratory safety, team-work and measurement safety in an integrated way.

This subject is one of the subjects that define the Biomedical Engineering Systems Major in the Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Biomedicine, and it is a core requirement for the Master of Biomedical Engineering. It provides a foundation for various subsequent subjects, including BMEN90002 Neural Information Processing and BMEN90021 Medical Imaging.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics include:

Basic principles of charge, current, Coulomb's law, electric fields and electrical energy, Kirchhoff's current law, Kirchhoff's voltage law, voltage and current division, node voltage analysis, mesh current analysis, Thévenin and Norton equivalent circuits, transient analysis of RC and RL circuits, steady-state analysis of RLC circuits, phasors and impedance, frequency domain models for signals and frequency response for systems, continuous-time and discrete-time Fourier transforms, frequency response, filtering, transfer functions, Z-transforms, Laplace transforms, poles and zeros and the relationship to state-space representations.

This material is complemented using software tools (e.g., MATLAB) for computation and simulation, and practical experience with circuits and systems in the laboratory.

Please view this video for further information: Circuits and Systems

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Biosystems Design is the capstone experience for the Bioengineering Systems major, bringing together learning, skills, and biosystems knowledge from across the degree and apply it in a team-based design project. Students work collaboratively and independently from concept development to prototype implementation, engaging with real-world, complex, and open-ended projects that reflect professional health and medical technology contexts.

Project work is scaffolded by structured activities that reinforce foundational knowledge and highlight applications of biosensors, transducers, and signal processing. These activities support students in navigating the ethical, safety, and risk management considerations inherent in the development of medical devices.

As the capstone experience, student independence in all aspects of the design process is emphasised. This includes taking responsibility for project direction, time management, decision-making, problem-solving, and communication while working within diverse teams. Working through uncertain and evolving design scenarios fosters resilience, reflective practice, and a deeper understanding of interdisciplinary collaboration.

The capstone experience emphasises critical inquiry, design practice, consistency, and creativity. Students are encouraged to question assumptions, explore alternative approaches, and evaluate the broader impact of their work. The capstone project culminates in the dissemination of project outcomes, providing a platform to demonstrate the skills, knowledge, and professional identity developed throughout the degree.

Please view this video for further information: Biosystems Design

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This subject is designed to enable students to apply the fundamental principles of material sciences to biomedical applications. It will introduce different materials (polymers, metals, ceramics and composites) and their behaviours in contact with biological environments. In addition, students will learn about the properties of biological materials like bone, muscles, skin and vasculature.

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Mechanical forces play a critical role in the healthy function of the human body, from movement during walking to beating of the heart. Mechanical forces also affect the properties and function of engineered tissues and influence the migration and spread of cancer cells through the body. This subject introduces students to fundamental principles in mechanics including analysis of bioengineering systems under static equilibrium conditions, analysis of forces during dynamic motion, mechanical behaviour and strength of biomaterials. Topics covered in this subject will include: Newtons’ laws of motion; stress and strain analysis in mechanical and biological systems subjected to different types of static loads; fundamentals of mechanical testing and failure analysis for biomaterials characterisation; fundamental physics underpinning motion of rigid bodies. Topics will draw on real-world bioengineering applications.

Please view this video for further information: Mechanics for Bioengineering

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This subject builds on students’ prior knowledge, exploring the diversity and unity of life through the lens of five core concepts: evolution, cell theory, regulation, transmission of information and interconnectedness in biological systems. These concepts will be studied at the molecular, cellular, and individual level. Topics will include the evolution of life from the abiotic to the individual, the molecular and physical structure of the cell, cell replication and gene expression, homeostasis and physiological systems regulation, respiration, and interactions within and between organisms.

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This subject builds on students’ prior knowledge of biology, exploring the diversity and unity of life through the lens of five core concepts: evolution, cell theory, regulation, transmission of information and interconnectedness in biological systems. These concepts will be studied at the molecular, cellular, and individual level, including the evolution of life from the abiotic to the individual, the molecular and physical structure of the cell, cell replication and gene expression, homeostasis, photosynthesis and respiration, and interactions within and between organisms.

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This subject provides an introduction to the basic concepts of General Chemistry, including the periodic table, elements, atoms, and states of matter; gases; elementary quantum mechanics, atomic spectra and atomic structure; structure and bonding in elements and compounds of groups 14-18; the chemistry of carbon-based compounds, including structure and bonding of alkanes, alkenes and alkynes, chirality, nomenclature, benzene and its derivatives, functional groups; intermolecular forces; energy and thermochemistry; chemical equilibrium; acid-base chemistry including the strength of acids and bases; physical properties of solutions; solutions and pH equilibria.

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This subject introduces important mathematical methods required in engineering such as manipulating vector differential operators, computing multiple integrals and using integral theorems. A range of ordinary and partial differential equations are solved by a variety of methods and their solution behaviour is interpreted. The subject also introduces series including the concepts of convergence and divergence.

Topics include: Vector calculus, including Gauss’ and Stokes’ Theorems; systems of homogeneous ordinary differential equations, including phase plane and linearisation for nonlinear systems; Laplace transforms; series, including Taylor series and power series; Fourier series and Fourier integrals; second order partial differential equations and separation of variables.

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This subject teaches the fundamental theory, design and operational principles of biomedical instrumentation and measurement systems for the design of electronics for measurement and analysis of physiological parameters of the body and organs. The subject provides theory and practical exposure to understanding the basis of physiological signals and analysing biomedical signals, including hands-on experience in designing and building bioinstrumentation systems that can measure biological signals. Students will be introduced to medical devices, design principles, biomedical signals, biomedical instrumentation circuits and electrical safety and systems. These topics will be complemented by exposure to software tools for electronic circuit simulation and design. The subject is taught in a flipped classroom format and comprises: pre-tutorial reading, tutorials requiring student participation, guided workshops on using biosensors and transducers and individual self-paced project work.

Please view this video for further information: Bioinstrumentation

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This subject teaches the fundamentals of signal processing in a biomedical engineering context. Students will be introduced to digital sampling of analog signals, frequency domain analysis, design of digital filters, parameter estimation techniques and Wiener and Kalman filtering. The subject includes analysis and design for biomedical engineering applications.

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This subject will cover the physics of fluids, with a special focus on biologically relevant fluid flows. This includes the flow of bodily fluids in biomedical testing devices and in therapeutic systems. Students will study fundamental fluids mechanics principles and develop an understanding of the mathematics that describe them. These principles will then be employed using computational approaches in real-world applications for fluid mechanics, including pipe flow, microfluidics, pumps and rheology.

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This subject teaches fundamentals of data analysis as relevant to modern biomedical engineering, in an integrated approach that combines theory with highly contextualised, project-based learning. Students are introduced to the foundations of probability and random variables, statistical hypothesis testing, linear and nonlinear regression, data classification and dimensionality reduction techniques. Each topic is explicated via case studies from clinical, industrial and research applications of biomedical engineering, covering topics in biomechanics, biosensors, bioinformatics, biomedical imaging and biomaterials.

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Biomechanics, which relates structure and function in biological systems, is important in the understanding of human movement, and in the treatment of conditions affecting the musculoskeletal and neuromuscular systems. This subject introduces students to musculoskeletal biomechanics of the human body, with applications to the behaviour of biological tissues such as bone, cartilage, ligament and muscle during human movement.

The subject will provide theory and practical exposure to human motion measurement and modelling of the joint forces and moments that actuate human movement. This subject will introduce biomechanics in sport and implant systems, including ageing, injury and associated musculoskeletal disorders. It will provide an overview of orthopaedics strategies for the treatment of end-stage bone and joint conditions and relate this to relevant mechanics for designing implant systems.

Please view this video for further information: Biomechanics

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This subject will cover key aspects of engineering management to help students prepare for working in the biomedical engineering industry including the processes and regulations of therapeutic goods.

It will focus on Biomedical Engineering Management, including the engineer and professional practice, the functions of professional societies; systems engineering and management processes of planning, organisation, leadership and control of human, physical and financial resources, biomedical engineering and quality management systems including ISO 9000 series requirements. This subject will also cover regulations, including risk management and international and Australian regulatory guidelines focusing on medical device regulations, classifications and standards. Also taught in this subject will be human clinical trials, regulation and ethics, design and evaluation of human clinical trials, requirements for post market monitoring, and medical device registries.

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AIMS

Students will learn how to structure and work with engineering contracts to deliver and procure engineering outcomes in this subject. Students will develop a working knowledge of contract administration and gain an understanding of commercial aspects of engineering. All engineers interface commercially with engineering contracts throughout their careers, and thus the application of the subject content is broad. Those seeking to work as a contractor and as a contract administrator will find a direct application of this subject’s content. Students will learn how to use procurement and contracts to develop successful engineering projects. This includes administration of the contracts and understanding the business environment where these contracts are agreed. These skills will be useful to students in their future work and apply to a wide range of engineering disciplines.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Management of engineering projects. This includes the role and responsibilities of corporate managers, market analysis, structuring of procurement options, development of contractual terms and conditions and the pricing of work.

Estimating and tendering engineering works via work breakdown structures, work method statements, risk identification and tendering principles. The study material also covers contract administration and project control functions and techniques including time and money negotiations and cash flow management.

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Critical Communication for Engineers (CCE) addresses the skills vital for professional success. Problem analysis skills and being able to present solutions effectively to your engineering peers, leaders and the broader community are a powerful combination. These are the focus of CCE.

They are challenging skills to learn—and you will likely work to improve them throughout your career. Effective communication is not merely about how to write a report or to give a formal presentation. Developing a strong argument—having something insightful to communicate—is essential for capturing the attention of an audience. This requires developing good interpersonal skills for gathering information and testing ideas.

The subject is divided into four ‘topics’ presented in sequence through the semester. Each topic is self-contained and dedicated to a different engineering issue. There is an assessment for each topic, meaning that you will be able to apply what you have learned from one topic to the following topics. This way, you will have a lot of opportunities to practise and develop your analytical and communication skills.

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A central innovation task is to identify the real problem that lies beneath the surface-level symptoms. Another is to find the best solution to that underlying problem. Professional work is often the same. Clearly defined tasks can frequently be delegated to a machine or a technician. Furthermore, because innovation problems are big and messy, we often need diverse teams to solve them. This subject aims to give you theoretical frameworks, practical insights, and preliminary skills to solve ambiguous problems and to work successfully in teams.

You will develop these understandings, insights and skills by working on two projects.  In the first, your multi-disciplinary team, supported by a mentor, will propose an innovation that helps a partner (industry, hospital, not-for-profit, start-up, the University) address a strategic challenge.  Through that project, you will learn the “what and how” of delivering innovation-like projects – understanding the relationship between your challenge and the organisation’s strategy; designing, securing, and conducting interviews; analysing qualitative data to generate insights; ideation and creativity techniques to create value; stakeholder management; working in an intense team on an ambiguous problem; visual and oral communication.  In the second, you will develop the ability to apply to the same concepts to yourself – How will you know what you want and need?   How will you know if you need to change?  How will you innovate yourself as your interests, needs, and work world shift?

We aim for you and your team to own your project and your learning.

Design Innovation and Leadership (DIAL) is delivered by the University's multi-award-winning Innovation Practice Program. To learn more about the Program, including a video about the subject, the range of organizations that have participated as sponsors, examples of past projects, and to hear students talk about their experiences in the predecessor subject, CIE/CIP, please go to the Innovation Practice Program’s website.

All project sponsors will require that students maintain the confidentiality of their proprietary information.  The University will require all students (except those working on projects sponsored by the University itself) to assign any Intellectual Property they create (other than Copyright in their Assessment Materials) to the sponsor of their project. The projects may vary in the hours needed for a successful outcome.

Master of Engineering students please note: This subject has been integrated with the Skills Towards Employment Program (STEP) to create a straightforward pathway for completion of the Engineering Practice Hurdle (EPH). See the STEP page for more information.

Please note: If you commenced a Master of Engineering degree prior to 2025, DIAL qualifies for the selective slot previously held by Creating Innovative Engineering. Engineering students who commenced in 2025 or later may only take DIAL as an elective.

View detailed information in the Handbook

This subject aims to give you theoretical frameworks, practical insights, and preliminary skills to work in your chosen profession in contexts where determining what problem to work on is an important complement to knowing how to solve that problem.

You will develop these understandings, insights and skills by working on two projects. In the first, they will work in multi-disciplinary teams on a strategically-important innovation challenge sponsored by an industry organisation. Through that project, you will learn the “what and how” of delivering innovation-like projects – understanding the relationship between your challenge and the organisation’s strategy; designing, securing, and conducting interviews; analysing qualitative data to generate insights; ideation and creativity techniques to create value; stakeholder management; working in an intense team on an ambiguous problem; visual and oral communication. In the second, you will develop the ability to apply to the same concepts to yourself – How will you know what you want and need? How will you know if you need to change? How will you innovate yourself as your interests, needs, and work world shift?

We aim for you and your team to own your project and your learning.

Creating Innovative Professionals (CIP) and its companion subject, Creating Innovative Engineering ENGR90034 (CIE), are delivered by the University's Innovation Practice Program. To learn more about the Program, including the range of organizations that have participated as sponsors, examples of past projects and to hear students talk about their experiences in taking CIE/CIP, please go to the Innovation Practice Program’s website.

All project sponsors will require students to maintain the confidentiality of their proprietary information. The University will require all students (except those working on projects sponsored by the University itself) to assign any Intellectual Property they create (other than Copyright in their Assessment Materials) to the sponsor of their project.

View detailed information in the Handbook

AIMS

This subject introduces students to the basic mechanisms of information processing and learning in the brain and nervous system. The subject builds upon signals and systems modelling approaches to demonstrate the application of mathematical and computation modelling to understanding and simulating neural systems. Aspects of neural modelling that are introduced include: membrane potential, action potentials, neural coding, neural models and neural learning. The application of neural information processing is demonstrated in areas such as: electrophysiology, and neuroprostheses. Material is reinforced through MATLAB and/or NEURON based laboratories.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics include:

Neural information processing analysed using information theoretic measures; generation and propagation of action potentials (spikes); Hodgkin-Huxley equations; coding and transmission of neural information (spiking rate, correlation and synchronisation); neural models (binary, rate based, integrate & fire, Hodgkin-Huxley, and multicompartmental); synaptic plasticity and learning in biological neural systems (synaptic basis of learning, short term, medium term and long term, and rate based Hebbian learning models); spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) of synapses; higher order neural pathways and systems (cortical structure and circuits).

View detailed information in the Handbook

AIMS

Students studying Tissue Engineering and Stem Cells will become familiar with the history, scope and potential of tissue engineering, and the potential role of stem cells in this field. This subject will address the use of biomaterials in tissue engineering; major scaffold materials and fabrication methods, scaffold strength and degradation; cell sources, selection, challenges and potential manipulation; cell-surface interactions, biocompatibility and the foreign body reaction; the role and delivery of growth factors for tissue engineering applications; in vitro and in vivo tissue engineering strategies, challenges, cell culture, scale-up issues and transport modelling; ethical and regulatory issues; clinical applications of tissue engineering, such as bone regeneration, breast reconstruction, cardiac and corneal tissue engineering, and organogenesis (e.g. pancreas).

This subject provides students with exposure to and understanding of a range of new and emerging applications of biomedical engineering. It includes research-led learning with opportunities to interact with experts and active researchers in the fields of stem cells and tissue engineering. The subject covers aspects of biology, materials engineering and process engineering which underpin tissue engineering and provides examples of the applications of this evolving area of technology.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics covered include tissue organization & tissue dynamics, stem cells, cellular fate processes & signalling, the ECM as scaffold material, natural and synthetic polymers for tissue engineering, bioceramics, scaffold design and fabrication, tailoring biomaterials, cell culture and cell nutrition, bioreactors for tissue engineering, risk management in tissue engineering, ethics in tissue engineering.

Please view this video for further information: Tissue Engineering and Stem Cells

View detailed information in the Handbook

AIMS

This subject introduces students to the engineering, physics and physiology of medical imaging, including the history and progression of medical imaging modalities as well as emerging imaging technologies in clinical and research practise. Topics covered include: x-ray, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics include:

Image metrics including signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios, image resolution, image operations including convolution, filtering and edge detection;

Biophysical principles of X-ray, CT, PET, SPECT, MRI and ultrasound, and the mathematics of image reconstruction for each modality, including filtered backprojection and fourier reconstruction methods;

This material is complemented by the use of software tools (e.g. MATLAB) for data simulation, modelling, image manipulation and reconstruction techniques.

View detailed information in the Handbook

AIMS and INDICATIVE CONTENT

In this subject students should gain an understanding of the structure and function of the skeletal, muscular, and sensory systems of the human body.

Students should also be able to formulate simple, integrative models of the human neuromusculoskeletal system; and to use computational models of the human body to analyse muscle function during activities like standing, walking, running and jumping.

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AIMS:

This subject introduces mathematical and computational modelling, simulation and analysis of biological systems. The emphasis is on developing models, with examples, using MATLAB.

INDICATIVE CONTENT:

Topics include:

Modelling biochemical reactions. Law of mass action. Enzymes and regulation of enzyme reactions. Thermodynamics of reversible biochemical reactions. Cellular homeostasis. Application of ordinary differential equations to these problems.

Modelling large reaction networks. Flux balance analysis and constraint-based methods. Genome-scale models. Regulation of gene expression. Gene regulatory networks in systems and synthetic biology. Network inference and statistical modelling of –omic data. Knowledge-based modelling in systems biology.

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AIMS

This subject introduces students to the analysis of soft tissue and cellular biomechanics.

The human body is mostly composed of soft tissues. These tissues and their cells respond to or generate mechanical forces to sustain human health. For example:

• Heart muscle cells generate forces to pump blood.

• The stomach generates pulsatile forces that help food digestion.

• Cancer cells move and spread through the body by generating mechanical forces.

Soft tissue mechanical properties change in cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal dysfunction and cancer. Therefore, studying the biomechanics of soft tissues and cells is essential to health and disease management.

Soft tissues experience forces drastically differently to bones and engineering materials due to their soft nature. Standard engineering analysis methods that are adopted for bone biomechanics are not useful. This subject will introduce students to the right theoretical and experimental mechanical analysis framework to study soft tissue and cellular biomechanics. Students will learn the computational methods underlying finite element modeling, which is needed to perform accurate biomechanical analyses of soft tissues and cells.

By the end of this subject, students will be proficient in advanced biomechanics concepts, which are essential to study soft tissues and cells. The subject will routinely expose students to applications of the subject concepts through case studies in cardiovascular biomechanics, cancer and tissue engineering. Guest lectures will be provided by industry, clinical and research experts who work in or apply principles of soft tissue and cellular biomechanics.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

• Cell and tissue biomechanics
• Finite element modeling
• Mechanical characterisation of soft tissue and biomaterials
• Applications of biomechanics in industry and healthcare.

View detailed information in the Handbook

Process engineering applies scientific principles to convert raw materials and energy into useful products, and it is critical to a variety of biomedical technologies including production of pharmaceuticals, dialysis, tissue engineering, etc. Core to process engineering is an understanding of how energy and mass move through systems – and how these can be controlled – to achieve a desired goal.

In this subject you will learn the fundamental laws that describe how heat and mass move through systems and develop mathematical models that describe this movement. We will then look at how this movement of energy and mass is applicable to the biomedical engineering discipline. Some of the topics covered are listed below:

• How oxygen and nutrients travel through the human body to maintain homeostasis,
• How cell culture and tissue engineering systems can be designed to provide sufficient nutrients and oxygen to maintain cell viability,
• How dialysis can be used to remove contaminants from blood of patients suffering kidney failure,
• How the presence of a bacterial biofilm limits the ability to treat biomedical device-related infections, and
• How processes can be designed to produce products like pharmaceuticals.

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Technological advances in DNA sequencing, RNA sequencing and proteomics have provided a wealth of data from which biological insight can be obtained. Refining this data is a non-trivial matter due to the increased input sizes seen in modern high-throughput bioinformatics. This subject provides algorithmic strategies and data structures capable of meeting the challenge. While focused on bioinformatic data, the concepts herein apply to big data analysis as a whole.

This subject covers key algorithms and data structures used in bioinformatics and assumes you have experience in programming. Strategies which frequently appear in modern software are explored so that bioinformatics tools may be appropriately selected, executed, and interpreted. This exploration yields a toolkit from which new computational methods can be created. Indicative topics include sequence operations for comparison, alignment and indexing, graph data structures in the context of genome assembly, phylogenetics and network analysis, and both supervised and unsupervised machine learning within the fields of optimisation, dimensionality reduction, clustering and classification.

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AIM

The study of genomics is on the forefront of biology. Current laboratory technologies generate huge amounts of data and computational analysis is necessary to make sense of these data. This subject covers a broad range of approaches to the computational analysis of genomic data. Students will learn the theory behind a variety of different approaches to genomic analysis, and be introduced to key tools in current use, preparing them to use existing methods appropriately as well as developing new ways to analyse genomic data. Students will also have opportunities to apply their skills in workshops and assignments using both existing computational genomics tools and writing custom Python functions.

Computational Genomics can be taken as an elective subject. It can also be taken by undergraduate students, exchange students and PhD students, subject to the written approval of the subject coordinator.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

This subject covers the computational analysis of several important forms of genomic data. Topics include computational resource management, reproducible research principles, genomics workflows, sequence alignment, genome annotation, parallel computing, metagenomics and single-cell sequencing. The subject domain rapidly progresses, and subject content is regularly revised and updated.

Practical work includes writing bioinformatics functions with Python code, accessing genomics data repositories and using popular command-line tools.

Please view this video for further information: Computational Genomics

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AIMS

This subject aims to provide an advanced understanding of pharmaceutical and biochemical production processes; students will learn about processes in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

How are drugs made? What steps are required to progress a successful drug candidate from the laboratory to large scale manufacture? How can cells and enzymes be used in manufacturing? This subject will answer these questions, examining unit operations and the design and operation of manufacturing processes that are used to make a range of products including opiates, blood plasma products, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and other medicines. Unit operations will include the growth of bacterial, animal, plant and fungal cells, cell disruption and methods for product separation and purification, such as chromatography. Case studies will include the production of recombinant proteins and amino acids and the genetic techniques required to make these products. The sustainable production of other biochemicals will also be discussed, including biofuels and the growth of algae. Students will learn how cellular processes can also be used by chemical engineers to improve process efficiencies, clean up our environment and reduce chemical waste. Regulation, Good Manufacturing Practice and Validation processes will be introduced, along with the design of laboratories, pilot plants and manufacturing facilities and associated utilities and services. Industry speakers will also highlight new opportunities and best practice within the Australian pharmaceutical industry. Students will also be introduced to relevant analytical techniques used to track production and purity and will become familiar with the research literature in this field.

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AIMS

This subject involves undertaking a major research or advanced innovative design project requiring an independent investigation and the preparation of reports on an approved topic. Students will present their findings in a conference presentation format, held at the end of the project cycle in the latter half of semester two.

The emphasis of the project can be associated with either:

• Explorative approach, where students will pursue outcomes associated with new knowledge or understanding within the biomedical engineering or science disciplines, often as an adjunct to existing academic research initiatives.
• A well-defined innovative project, usually based on a research and development required by an external industrial client. Students will be tutored in the synthesis of practical solutions to complex technical problems within a structured working environment, as if they were research and development professional engineers.

This subject has been integrated with the Skills Towards Employment Program (STEP) and contains activities that can assist in the completion of the Engineering Practice Hurdle (EPH).

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AIMS

BioDesign Innovation is a “real world” course in creating successful medical devices. The course is given over two semesters of one academic year and is composed of frontal lectures, practical training, and a guided project. The first semester focusses on identifying clinical needs, brainstorming and concept creation. The second semester focusses on concept development and business implementation. Teams of 2-3 students from engineering disciplines will team up with business students and with people from medical and law backgrounds to conceive and design an innovative medical device, taking it through all steps of development. The students in the teams will complete assessment items together, each member primarily contributing according to their specialisation. The teams will create an engineering prototype of their invention, draft a provisional patent application, and compose a detailed business plan. BioDesign Innovation is taught by a combination of academics, medical device entrepreneurs, corporate executives, intellectual property attorneys and venture capitalists. As such, it provides a unique opportunity to gain real world experience while still in an academic environment.

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AIMS

While many chemical engineers work in process engineering, the interdisciplinary nature of chemical engineering is applicable to product development and design where between 30 % to 50% of chemical engineers work in product development depending on the country. The types of products can be quite diverse in nature, ranging from sunscreens, shampoo, pharmaceuticals or mass-produced ice-cream to more device-oriented products such as energy storage devices (e.g., super-capacitors, graphene based materials), drug delivery materials (e.g. polymer particles, capsules or hydrogels), tissue engineered materials or even kidney dialysis units. In practice, chemical engineers work with other engineers (e.g., materials, biomedical, mechanical) in product design in a range of industrial sectors including foods, cosmetics, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, 2D materials, veterinary and agricultural sciences, minerals purification, biochemical processing and biomedical engineering.

This subject allows students to better understand product design by learning about the unifying fundamental structure-function relationships and material properties found in these complex products. Students will learn how to use >a basic knowledge of interfacial phenomena to see how products or devices are designed, manufactured and analysed. In addition, students will be introduced to the key stages of product development, the importance of the needs and specifications of the target users and customers and decision gating processes involved in getting a product from an idea to market. Students will also learn about some of the instruments used in industry for analysis of products, from the basics to state-of-the-art. Students will be able to use the information from the lectures and tutorials to focus on an area of interest to explore how a product or device was discovered, developed, designed delivered for a set of users or customers. They will also be able to present this information to a broader audience.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Fundamental topics covered in the subject include: how colloidal particle diffusion mediates particle suspension stability and shelf life, how to link interparticle forces to stability, shelf life and particle suspension flow, i.e., viscoelasticity and rheology; the formation and properties of emulsions and foams, the behaviour of polymers in solution and how this affects polymer adsorption to surfaces and coating formation; the viscoelastic behaviour of polymer solutions and how polymers are used in soft materials including polymer coatings, gels and hydrogels; the formation solution microstructure through the self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules to form micelles, vesicles and hexagonal phases. The common characterisation and analytical methods used to study these phenomena including a number of more advanced methods in spectroscopy, microscopy, particle size measurement and image analysis.

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AIM

Within this subject you will learn how to use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to solve practical industrial and research related fluid flow and heat/mass transfer problems. The major assessment within this subject is a capstone project, requiring a CFD treatment of a major piece of equipment related to your degree discipline area. This project may be industry or research based. Learning is supported by a number of structured group-based workshops completed throughout the semester, requiring completion of associated on-line quizzes. Guest lectures from academia and industry will share insights into how they use CFD in their research/workplace.

SUBJECT CONTENT

The content of this subject is split between two related modules:

1) Fundamentals of CFD: Within this module we will cover the mathematical basis of modern CFD methods, using MATLAB as a programming tool to demonstrate specific fundamental concepts. Specific topics include overview, conservation laws, advection-diffusion equations, differencing schemes, finite volume method, stability analysis, error analysis, boundary conditions and solution algorithms for solving Navier-Stokes equations.

2) Applications of CFD: This module will be based around the industry-relevant CFD package ANSYS Fluent. Specific topics include: How to run a basic simulation, meshing, laminar 2D and 3D flows, boundary conditions, discretisation methods, visualisation, turbulence, disperse multiphase flows, free-surface multiphase flows, coupled heat and mass transfer, chemical reactions, use of CFD in industry and research.

Please view this video for further information: Computational Fluid Dynamics

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AIMS

This subject involves students undertaking professional work experience with a Host Organisation, generally at the Host Organisation’s premises. Students will work under the supervision of both an academic mentor and an external supervisor at the Host Organisation.

By completing their internship as part of this subject, students will receive support in navigating their placement, guidance on maximising their learning from the experiences they gain and training in how to use these experiences when seeking employment.

This subject uses structured reflection to help students develop the professional skills and competencies required by engineers and IT professionals. Each student is allocated an academic mentor to assist them in their development and support their well-being.

Please view this video for further information: Internship

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AIMS

This subject introduces students to the basic mechanisms of information processing and learning in the brain and nervous system. The subject builds upon signals and systems modelling approaches to demonstrate the application of mathematical and computation modelling to understanding and simulating neural systems. Aspects of neural modelling that are introduced include: membrane potential, action potentials, neural coding, neural models and neural learning. The application of neural information processing is demonstrated in areas such as: electrophysiology, and neuroprostheses. Material is reinforced through MATLAB and/or NEURON based laboratories.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics include:

Neural information processing analysed using information theoretic measures; generation and propagation of action potentials (spikes); Hodgkin-Huxley equations; coding and transmission of neural information (spiking rate, correlation and synchronisation); neural models (binary, rate based, integrate & fire, Hodgkin-Huxley, and multicompartmental); synaptic plasticity and learning in biological neural systems (synaptic basis of learning, short term, medium term and long term, and rate based Hebbian learning models); spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) of synapses; higher order neural pathways and systems (cortical structure and circuits).

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AIMS

Students studying Tissue Engineering and Stem Cells will become familiar with the history, scope and potential of tissue engineering, and the potential role of stem cells in this field. This subject will address the use of biomaterials in tissue engineering; major scaffold materials and fabrication methods, scaffold strength and degradation; cell sources, selection, challenges and potential manipulation; cell-surface interactions, biocompatibility and the foreign body reaction; the role and delivery of growth factors for tissue engineering applications; in vitro and in vivo tissue engineering strategies, challenges, cell culture, scale-up issues and transport modelling; ethical and regulatory issues; clinical applications of tissue engineering, such as bone regeneration, breast reconstruction, cardiac and corneal tissue engineering, and organogenesis (e.g. pancreas).

This subject provides students with exposure to and understanding of a range of new and emerging applications of biomedical engineering. It includes research-led learning with opportunities to interact with experts and active researchers in the fields of stem cells and tissue engineering. The subject covers aspects of biology, materials engineering and process engineering which underpin tissue engineering and provides examples of the applications of this evolving area of technology.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics covered include tissue organization & tissue dynamics, stem cells, cellular fate processes & signalling, the ECM as scaffold material, natural and synthetic polymers for tissue engineering, bioceramics, scaffold design and fabrication, tailoring biomaterials, cell culture and cell nutrition, bioreactors for tissue engineering, risk management in tissue engineering, ethics in tissue engineering.

Please view this video for further information: Tissue Engineering and Stem Cells

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AIMS

This subject introduces students to the engineering, physics and physiology of medical imaging, including the history and progression of medical imaging modalities as well as emerging imaging technologies in clinical and research practise. Topics covered include: x-ray, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

Topics include:

Image metrics including signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios, image resolution, image operations including convolution, filtering and edge detection;

Biophysical principles of X-ray, CT, PET, SPECT, MRI and ultrasound, and the mathematics of image reconstruction for each modality, including filtered backprojection and fourier reconstruction methods;

This material is complemented by the use of software tools (e.g. MATLAB) for data simulation, modelling, image manipulation and reconstruction techniques.

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AIMS and INDICATIVE CONTENT

In this subject students should gain an understanding of the structure and function of the skeletal, muscular, and sensory systems of the human body.

Students should also be able to formulate simple, integrative models of the human neuromusculoskeletal system; and to use computational models of the human body to analyse muscle function during activities like standing, walking, running and jumping.

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AIMS:

This subject introduces mathematical and computational modelling, simulation and analysis of biological systems. The emphasis is on developing models, with examples, using MATLAB.

INDICATIVE CONTENT:

Topics include:

Modelling biochemical reactions. Law of mass action. Enzymes and regulation of enzyme reactions. Thermodynamics of reversible biochemical reactions. Cellular homeostasis. Application of ordinary differential equations to these problems.

Modelling large reaction networks. Flux balance analysis and constraint-based methods. Genome-scale models. Regulation of gene expression. Gene regulatory networks in systems and synthetic biology. Network inference and statistical modelling of –omic data. Knowledge-based modelling in systems biology.

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AIMS

This subject introduces students to the analysis of soft tissue and cellular biomechanics.

The human body is mostly composed of soft tissues. These tissues and their cells respond to or generate mechanical forces to sustain human health. For example:

• Heart muscle cells generate forces to pump blood.

• The stomach generates pulsatile forces that help food digestion.

• Cancer cells move and spread through the body by generating mechanical forces.

Soft tissue mechanical properties change in cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal dysfunction and cancer. Therefore, studying the biomechanics of soft tissues and cells is essential to health and disease management.

Soft tissues experience forces drastically differently to bones and engineering materials due to their soft nature. Standard engineering analysis methods that are adopted for bone biomechanics are not useful. This subject will introduce students to the right theoretical and experimental mechanical analysis framework to study soft tissue and cellular biomechanics. Students will learn the computational methods underlying finite element modeling, which is needed to perform accurate biomechanical analyses of soft tissues and cells.

By the end of this subject, students will be proficient in advanced biomechanics concepts, which are essential to study soft tissues and cells. The subject will routinely expose students to applications of the subject concepts through case studies in cardiovascular biomechanics, cancer and tissue engineering. Guest lectures will be provided by industry, clinical and research experts who work in or apply principles of soft tissue and cellular biomechanics.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

• Cell and tissue biomechanics
• Finite element modeling
• Mechanical characterisation of soft tissue and biomaterials
• Applications of biomechanics in industry and healthcare.

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Process engineering applies scientific principles to convert raw materials and energy into useful products, and it is critical to a variety of biomedical technologies including production of pharmaceuticals, dialysis, tissue engineering, etc. Core to process engineering is an understanding of how energy and mass move through systems – and how these can be controlled – to achieve a desired goal.

In this subject you will learn the fundamental laws that describe how heat and mass move through systems and develop mathematical models that describe this movement. We will then look at how this movement of energy and mass is applicable to the biomedical engineering discipline. Some of the topics covered are listed below:

• How oxygen and nutrients travel through the human body to maintain homeostasis,
• How cell culture and tissue engineering systems can be designed to provide sufficient nutrients and oxygen to maintain cell viability,
• How dialysis can be used to remove contaminants from blood of patients suffering kidney failure,
• How the presence of a bacterial biofilm limits the ability to treat biomedical device-related infections, and
• How processes can be designed to produce products like pharmaceuticals.

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Technological advances in DNA sequencing, RNA sequencing and proteomics have provided a wealth of data from which biological insight can be obtained. Refining this data is a non-trivial matter due to the increased input sizes seen in modern high-throughput bioinformatics. This subject provides algorithmic strategies and data structures capable of meeting the challenge. While focused on bioinformatic data, the concepts herein apply to big data analysis as a whole.

This subject covers key algorithms and data structures used in bioinformatics and assumes you have experience in programming. Strategies which frequently appear in modern software are explored so that bioinformatics tools may be appropriately selected, executed, and interpreted. This exploration yields a toolkit from which new computational methods can be created. Indicative topics include sequence operations for comparison, alignment and indexing, graph data structures in the context of genome assembly, phylogenetics and network analysis, and both supervised and unsupervised machine learning within the fields of optimisation, dimensionality reduction, clustering and classification.

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AIM

The study of genomics is on the forefront of biology. Current laboratory technologies generate huge amounts of data and computational analysis is necessary to make sense of these data. This subject covers a broad range of approaches to the computational analysis of genomic data. Students will learn the theory behind a variety of different approaches to genomic analysis, and be introduced to key tools in current use, preparing them to use existing methods appropriately as well as developing new ways to analyse genomic data. Students will also have opportunities to apply their skills in workshops and assignments using both existing computational genomics tools and writing custom Python functions.

Computational Genomics can be taken as an elective subject. It can also be taken by undergraduate students, exchange students and PhD students, subject to the written approval of the subject coordinator.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

This subject covers the computational analysis of several important forms of genomic data. Topics include computational resource management, reproducible research principles, genomics workflows, sequence alignment, genome annotation, parallel computing, metagenomics and single-cell sequencing. The subject domain rapidly progresses, and subject content is regularly revised and updated.

Practical work includes writing bioinformatics functions with Python code, accessing genomics data repositories and using popular command-line tools.

Please view this video for further information: Computational Genomics

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AIMS

This subject aims to provide an advanced understanding of pharmaceutical and biochemical production processes; students will learn about processes in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

How are drugs made? What steps are required to progress a successful drug candidate from the laboratory to large scale manufacture? How can cells and enzymes be used in manufacturing? This subject will answer these questions, examining unit operations and the design and operation of manufacturing processes that are used to make a range of products including opiates, blood plasma products, vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and other medicines. Unit operations will include the growth of bacterial, animal, plant and fungal cells, cell disruption and methods for product separation and purification, such as chromatography. Case studies will include the production of recombinant proteins and amino acids and the genetic techniques required to make these products. The sustainable production of other biochemicals will also be discussed, including biofuels and the growth of algae. Students will learn how cellular processes can also be used by chemical engineers to improve process efficiencies, clean up our environment and reduce chemical waste. Regulation, Good Manufacturing Practice and Validation processes will be introduced, along with the design of laboratories, pilot plants and manufacturing facilities and associated utilities and services. Industry speakers will also highlight new opportunities and best practice within the Australian pharmaceutical industry. Students will also be introduced to relevant analytical techniques used to track production and purity and will become familiar with the research literature in this field.

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