Because of its interdisciplinary nature, biomedical engineering attracts students with a variety of backgrounds. Thus, the requirements for admission are tailored to students who have a bachelor’s degree in an engineering, physical science, or biological science discipline, with a grade point average of 3.20 or higher in their upper-division course work. The minimum course work requirements for admission are six quarters of calculus through linear algebra and ordinary differential equations, three quarters of calculus-based physics, three quarters of chemistry, and two quarters of biology. Students without a physics, chemistry, or engineering undergraduate degree may be required to take additional relevant undergraduate engineering courses during their first year in the program; any such requirements will be specifically determined by the BME Graduate Committee on a case-by-case basis and will be made known to the applicant at the time of acceptance to the program.

The recommended minimum combined verbal and quantitative portion of the GRE is 310, or a minimum combined MCAT score in Verbal Reasoning, Physical Sciences, and Biological Sciences problems of 508. A minimum score of 94 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL iBT) is recommended of all international students whose native language is not English. In addition, all applicants must submit three letters of recommendation.

Exceptionally promising UCI undergraduates may apply for admission through The Henry Samueli School of Engineering’s accelerated M.S. and M.S./Ph.D. program, however, these students must satisfy the course work and letters of recommendation requirements described above.

Core Requirement

The two elective courses required to fulfill the course requirements for the M.S. and Ph.D. are offered within The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the Schools of Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Medicine. The electives must provide breadth in biomedical engineering, but also provide specific skills necessary to the specific research the student may undertake as part of the degree requirements. The selection of these courses should be based upon approval of the student’s faculty advisor. Upper-division undergraduate courses and courses outside of the HSSoE may be selected upon approval of the BME Graduate Advisor. Elective requirements can be waived for students entering the Ph.D. program with an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering.

Although a student is not required to formally choose a specific research focus area, four research thrust areas have been identified for the program: Biophotonics, Biomedical Micro/Nanoscale Systems, Bioimaging & Computation, and Molecular & Cellular Engineering. These areas capitalize on existing strengths within The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and UCI as a whole, interact in a synergistic fashion, and will train biomedical engineers who are in demand in both private industry and academia.

Biophotonics. This research area includes the use of light to probe individual cells and tissues and whole organs for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The research areas include both fundamental investigation on the basic mechanisms of light interaction with biological systems and the clinical application of light to treat and diagnose disease. Current and future foci of the faculty are (1) microscope-based optical techniques to manipulate and study cells and organelles; (2) development of optically based technologies for the non-invasive diagnosis of cells and tissues using techniques that include fiber-optic-based sensors, delivery systems, and imaging systems; and (3) development of optically based devices for minimally invasive surgery.

Biomedical Micro/Nanoscale Systems. This class of research areas encompasses the understanding, use and design of biomedical devices and systems that are at the micron or submicron level. Current strengths within The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and the UCI faculty as a whole include biomaterials, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), and the design of new biomedical molecules. The focus of biomedical engineering research in this area is the integration of micro and nano-scale systems with the needs of clinical medicine. Projected areas of growth include (1) micro/nano-electromechanical systems (M/NEMS) for biomedical devices, biofluid assay and micro implantable prosthesis (2) programmable DNA/ molecular microchip for sequencing and diagnostics; (3) cellular, tissue, and organ constructs on-a-chip; and (4) biomaterials and self-assembled nanostructures for biosensors and drug delivery.

Biomedical Imaging & Computation. Biomedical computational technologies include both advanced computational techniques, as well as advanced biomedical database systems and knowledge-base systems. Computational technologies that will be developed in this research area include (1) methods for biomedical analysis and diagnosis such as physical modeling of light-tissue interactions, atomic-level interactions, image processing, pattern recognition, and machine-learning algorithms; (2) language instruction and platform standardization; and (3) machine-patient interfaces. Areas of research related to biomedical database systems include the development of new technologies which can capture the rich semantics of biomedical information for intelligent reasoning.

Molecular & Cellular Engineering. Rapid developments in genetics, molecular biology, and cellular biology have extended the reach of engineering into the subcellular, cellular, and tissue size scales. As a result, several new fields including genetic engineering, cell-based therapy, and tissue engineering have emerged and matured in the past decades with the broad goal of extracting and applying engineering design principles to the most fundamental levels of biological organization.