Key concepts: polymer biodegradation, glass transition temperature, hydrogel synthesis, swelling, increasing mechanical strength of hydrogels, biointegration of metal implants, natural composites, mathematical models of diffusion-controlled drug release

Most exciting idea: When performing immunotherapy, you can encapsulate the radioisotope-chelator complex in a hypoxia-gated cage that blocks radiation emission until the radioimmunoconjugate reaches the tumor microenvironment. This decreases toxicity to normal tissues and improves the therapeutic window!

Key concepts: dynamics systems modeling, mass-action kinetics, competitive vs. allosteric enzyme inhibition, stable vs. oscillatory biological networks, stochastic simulations, flux-balance analysis, data clustering, PCA

Most exciting idea: Differential expression analysis detects statistically significant differences in normalized gene expression (adjusted for gene length and sequencing depth) between experimental conditions, allowing for identification of genes implicated in disease mechanisms. 

Key concepts: intercellular signaling, cell culture, modeling cell growth, bioreactors, stem cells, differentiation pathways, organs on a chip, tissue engineering, immune system, engineering immune memory

Most exciting idea: You can perform CDR grafting to humanize monoclonal antibodies. Only the antigen-binding domain remains xenogeneic, while the rest of the antibody is human. This reduces risk of immune response and improves interactions with effector cells!

Key concepts: Fourier transform, analog-to-digital converts, frequency filters, op amps, LTI systems, impulse response functions, convolution, bandwidth, modulated signals, Matlab digital signal processing 

Most exciting idea: Every signal is the infinite weighted sum of impulse functions. Therefore, if you know how an LTI system responds to a single impulse (the impulse response function), you can predict the output of the LTI system for any input. 

Key concepts: biomaterial classifications, polymerization mechanisms, thermal transitions, defects, mechanical testing, degradation, surface treatments, form manipulation, biocompatibility optimization (prevent thrombosis/cytotoxicity/infection)

Most exciting idea: You can prevent implant-associated infections by releasing antibiotics from the biomaterials themselves. This is done by co-delivering the devices with absorbable antibacterial envelopes. 

Key concepts: free energy, probability, thermodynamic processes, Boltzmann distribution/partition function, solvation, reaction transition states, electrochemical equilibria, polymerization

Most exciting idea: Drugs can be encapsulated such that uptake into cells can be more thermodynamically favorable, thus increasing bioavailability. 

Key concepts: cellular respiration, nervous system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, renal system, musculoskeletal system, endocrine system, digestive system, integumentary system

Most exciting idea: Combination therapy can improve patient outcomes by targeting different stages of the pathology of a disease.

Key concepts: functional groups, isomers, bonding, resonance, aromaticity, conformers, acids/bases, nucleophilic substitution, carbonyl reactions, alpha carbon reactions, reduction/oxidation

Most exciting idea: Learning the molecular process behind DNA replication.

Key concepts: variables, functions, conditional statements, for/while loops, plotting, arrays, image processing, document processing, recursion, object-oriented programming

Most exciting idea: You can repeatedly adjust the difficulty of a task for a user based on their performances in previous iterations. 

Key concepts: production possibility frontiers, opportunity costs, comparative advantage, supply/demand functions, elasticity, types of surplus, types of cost, monopolies/cartels, game theory

Most exciting idea: Regulatory agencies can create shortages/surpluses of expendable goods in the market by imposing price floors/ceilings on producers. 

Key concepts: organelles, regulation of protein activity, microtubules, microfilaments, intercellular and intracellular transport, mitosis, cell signaling, stem cells, telomeres

Most exciting idea: Telomerase activators can prolong the human lifespan by increasing the number of mitotic cycles required for a cell to reach the Hayflick Limit, thus delaying senescence.