Designing the Future of Medicine: Inside Rice Bioengineering’s Capstone Experience

The Capstone experience is often a required rite-of-passage for seniors in Bioengineering. At Rice University, the Bioengineering Capstone program is defined by a commitment to real-world collaborative, experiential learning, access to diverse facilities and dedicated mentorship and proximity to the Texas Medical Center and local community resources. Here, we spotlight four student design projects from the past two years that are representative of the Bioengineering Capstone experience. These projects run the gamut from cardiac catheter anchoring and tissue retraction and suction device for spinal surgery to real-time coagulation monitoring and automated UTI and blood clot prevention. Collectively, these projects demonstrate how the Rice Bioengineering Capstone program supports success and promises impact for health care technology in the future.