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Important Update for Fall 2011 Applicants

The Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Engineering (TERM) PhD program has merged with the Cell and Developmental Biology (CDB) PhD program, and will now constitute one of the defined curricular tracks in the latter. Students in the TERM track will receive a degree in Cell & Developmental Biology with an identified Concentration in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.

When applying, choose the PhD-Cell and Developmental Biology option. Within the application, there will be a question that will allow the applicant to indicate their interest in the Tissue Engineering concentration.

Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Thomas Jefferson University, founded in 1824 as the Jefferson Medical College, is an institution committed to medical education, biomedical research, and the delivery of high quality health care. Throughout its long history, a significant number of technological breakthroughs have been achieved at Jefferson, which have opened new vistas in biomedicine. A short list of these achievements includes invention of the heart-lung machine, discovery of erythropoietin, development of cement-less orthopedic implants, pioneering chorionic villus sampling, and identification of disease-associated collagen gene mutations. A priority of the university is maintaining and expanding this tradition of excellence, and ultimately fostering the application of the results of basic biomedical research to clinical medicine.

Within the past decade, there has been expansion of the research activities of the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, the sponsoring unit of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (T.E.R.M.) Concentration within the Cell & Developmental Biology PhD program. These developments have involved expansion of the research faculty at both junior and senior levels. The result has been the creation of a dynamic and vital research environment and the assembly of a highly productive group of investigators. These investigators together with the colleagues in the Department of Dermatology and the Department of Medicine (Division of Rheumatology) as well as other collaborating departments have research interests in the skeletal and orthopaedic sciences, the pathogenesis of musculoskeletal and vascular diseases and the biology of the extracellular matrix. The research programs of these investigators provide an excellent platform for training the next generation of young scientists in this critical new sector of the biomedical sciences.

The unique features of the T.E.R.M. Concentration are:

• integration of contemporary advances in cell, molecular, and developmental biology for the purpose of understanding tissue function

• relating fundamental advances in the life sciences to contemporary concepts in tissue engineering

• understanding the pathogenesis of diseases that afflict the musculoskeletal system

• fostering of a practical understanding of translational medicine linking basic science research with clinical medicine

Graduates of the program are expected to be highly prepared, and competitive, for careers in academia, industry and government.