Photo by Sam Ogden
(R)evolutionary education? Training the next generation to bring science and technology to advance human health.
Dr. Martha Gray—March 15, 2005
Medicine and health care will be transformed! Such are the predictions about the impact of areas such as genomic medicine, full body imaging, nanobiology, and tissue engineering. These and related predictions are precipitated by the enormous advances in biological and physical sciences, all of which have the potential to dramatically alter how we conduct biomedical science, and how we create new preventative and therapeutic strategies. To fully realize the considerable potential, how should our educational approaches evolve? Some models, based on our experience in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) will be discussed in the context of a principled educational strategy.
About Dr. Martha Gray
DR. MARTHA L. GRAY is director of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical and Electrical Engineering. She joined the MIT faculty in the Division of HST and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1987. HST, a 34-year collaboration of Harvard and MIT, is an academic unit that has pioneered interdisciplinary educational and research programs focusing on solving problems in human health by bringing together the disciplines of engineering, science, technology and medicine.
As HST director, Gray has deep expertise in developing enduring connections between the science, medicine and business cultures that ultimately must work together to effectively translate from “bench to bedside.” Under her leadership and with colleagues from MIT’s Sloan school, Gray initiated a biomedical enterprise program intended to train the future leaders who will translate science and technology to clinical use.
Most recently, Gray and her group created a nondestructive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method for assessing cartilage now being used by many in industry and academia, to provide a window into how disease and therapeutic strategies affect cartilage tissue per se. It offers an alternative to radiography particularly valuable for early diagnosis and therapy.
This lecture series is generously endowed by the Allen H. Ford Distinguished Visiting Professors Program.