Hi all,
I am currently an undergrad double majoring in Chemistry and Mol/Cell Bio. I was wondering how difficult it would be to be accepted into MD/PhD programs with a research interest in BioE with a concentration in cellular bioengineering/drug delivery. I have a little bit of a unique situation:
My wet (main) lab is in the Department of Microbiology, the work I do is developing modular platforms for effective delivery/activity of targeted protein degradation systems. This is what got me into my subfield interest within BioE.
I also am involved in math/systems bio, where I am currently prepping a manuscript (as first author) analyzing non-monotonic dose response in targeted protein degradation systems.
Prior to undergrad, I was heavily involved in computer science, and I am still continuing my research at MSKCC doing biomedical informatics (initially more clinical AI, but am transitioning into statistical analysis of dose toxicity based on immune profile).
I have always had an interest in quantitative work, and I don't feel as fulfilled doing pure MCB research (which I had done prior). As such, I have tailored my schedule to incorporate more math/engineering courses (note that while I tried VARIOUS things to get more into bioengineering at my school, including getting a minor/dual degree, but all were extremely gatekept and nearly impossible to obtain). Now that I have the med school pre-reqs finished, I am just taking a wide array of applicable engineering courses for the work I want to do in my PhD:
| Electives |
|---|
| Systems Biology |
| Cellular Biomechanics |
| Models in Mathematical Biology (focused on chemical reaction networks) |
| Mechanobiology |
| Polymer Chemistry |
| Design and Use of Biomaterials |
| Biomolecular Materials Science |
| Biomaterials and Nanomedicine |
| Synthesis of Biomaterials |
| Biomaterials Applications |