Path to take to become a tissue engineer?

nish23
Wed, 14 Jun 2017 02:39:34 +0000

Hi! I’ll be a high school senior this year and for a few years now I’ve been really interested in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. I know one of the traditional paths is to get an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering (since it’s related and more common) and then find a graduate program that specializes in the tissue research part of BME - so basically tissue engineering.

I’ve heard that biomedical engineering is considered a “jack-of-all-trades” major, and if that’s the case, I’d rather not spend 4-5 years and thousands of dollars learning concepts I won’t use.

For example, I’m not all that interested in the biomedical instrumentation aspect of BME - I don’t want to work with devices/improving medical technology at all. I want to work with stem cell research and scaffolds and tissue regeneration. So I feel as though BME might not be the right major for me, but do I really have any other choice?

What are the steps you took or that you are taking to become a tissue engineer? Thanks in advance, any and all advice will be greatly appreciated.