Undergraduate

Biomedical Engineering 
International University – Vietnam National Universities
Ho Chi Minh City

Dear prospective parents and students,

Welcome to the BioMedical Engineering (BME) Department. The BME Department at IU was established in 2009 as a novel platform for students and faculty to excel. It is the first in the country that offers the accredited degree of Bachelor of Engineering in BME and the accredited degree of Master in BME. The Department promotes the close relationship between Education, Research and Entrepreneurship. Its motto is: High Quality, Sustainability and Usefulness. The Department has more than 300 undergraduate students nurtured by 8 Ph.D. degree faculty, all graduated in the universities abroad. The BME program infrastructure and operating mode stimulate students to perform well beyond the academic requirements to investigate issues that exist only in Vietnam to create an attractive research environment for international students and researchers.

The activities of the Department span over 5 orientations:

1. Medical Instrumentation focusing on the telemedicine, and the design of homecare devices for outpatients and advanced medical equipment providing rapid, automated and reliable diagnostics for healthcare professionals to satisfy the great and urgent needs of the country, and to bring synergy between traditional engineering technologies, the life sciences and medicine;
2. Biomedical Signal and Image Processing focusing on the applications of medical devices and developments of new research methodologies and algorithms to investigate human biological processes and provide an early detection of diseases;
3. Pharmaceutical Engineering focusing on the investigations of the mechanism of drug delivery using nanotechnology to enhance the efficacy of the treatment of tumors and the imaging diagnostics as well as the development of new drug delivery devices;
4. Tissue Engineering and Regenerative in Medicine focusing on the development of new biological and bioinductive materials, and the use of stem cells, genes to repair or replace damaged tissues and organs and to use in biological implants;
5. Entrepreneurship in Biomedical Engineering focusing on the developments of clinical engineering and practice of effective methods to bring into the market medical devices newly developed in academic laboratories, to build a medical device industry appropriate for Vietnam and developing countries, and to manage healthcare settings.

Professor Vo Van Toi, Chair of the BME Department, obtained his Ph.D in Micro-Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland in 1983. From 1983-1984 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Health Science and Technology Division (HST), a joint program of Harvard-MIT (USA). From 1984 to 2009 he was a faculty of the School of Engineering at Tufts University. He was co-chair of the joint educational programs between the School of Engineering and School of Medicine, and between the School of Engineering and School of Dental Medicine. From 1991 to 1992 he was on sabbatical from Tufts to be a Research Professor at the Scheie Eye Research Institute of University of Pennsylvania (USA). From 1992 to 1994 he helped create and was the Vice-Director of the Eye Research Institute in Sion (Switzerland). He was instrumental in establishing the BME Department at Tufts in 2003. From 2004 to 2007 he was nominated by President G. Bush to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), a U.S. federal agency established by the U.S. Congress to bring the U.S. and Vietnam closer through educational exchanges related to science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and technology. From 2007 to 2009 he was on leave from Tufts to be the Executive Director of VEF. In 2009 he resigned from VEF and took an early retirement from Tufts to go back to Vietnam to establish and chair the BME Department at IU. His research interests include: Design and Applications of Medical Devices, Mechanism of Human Visual System, Ophthalmology, and Telemedicine.

A. Admission Process for the Degree of Bachelor of Engineering in BME

The admission process consists of examining the academic record of the candidate and interviewing the candidate. This process is applied only to students who graduated from the high schools which used English language in teaching either in Vietnam or abroad (for Vietnamese students studying in the Vietnamese educational system please see the information in Vietnamese in this website). To encourage the applications of international students, International University offers tuition waivers to outstanding candidates on the case by case basis. During the study, International University also offers scholarships to outstanding BME students. Scholarship will be applied from the second semester of the first year on (it does not apply to students who have already had other University scholarships).

B. Admission Process for the Degree of Master of Engineering in BME

The Department of Biomedical Engineering offers a program leading to the degrees of Master for students preparing for careers in which research is a central activity. The Master programs promote integrative research, education and entrepreneurship at the forefront of biomedical science and engineering i.e. a strong tie between university, hospitals and corporations. Graduates from these programs are prepared to either:

• Take the lead in the health private sectors by having a focused vision and solid knowledge in engineering and entrepreneurship, and be capable of developing and putting on the market new medical devices, managing healthcare establishments, and establishing startup companies; or
• Pursue higher education in Vietnam or abroad in embarking on research at the interface between technology and health science or to be well versed in the principles and operations of the medical equipment used in the hospitals to help physicians in clinical treatments as well as in advanced research.

The admission process consists of examining the academic record of the candidate and interviewing the candidate. This process is applied only to international students who graduated from the universities which used English language in teaching. To encourage the applications of international students, International University offers tuition waivers to outstanding candidates on the case by case basis. During the study, International University also offers scholarships to outstanding BME students, Teaching Assistantship and Research Assistantship.

For more information please send an email to:

Professor Vo Van Toi

vvtoi@hcmiu.edu.vn

with details about your education records: high school name and location, academic transcript (report card) and other achievements.

More Information about BME from other sources:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjppW-yGOtCjKymJZc9ojSg/featured

 For more information, please contact:

Professor Vo Van Toi

Email: vvtoi@hcmiu.edu.vn

Enrollment and Graduation Data