Newswise — Growing old may not be for sissies, as the saying goes, but there's growing hope a new generation of geriatrics can achieve better quality of life by engineering their way through a maze of debilitating ailments linked to aging.
According to Mississippi State scientist Jerry Gilbert, some folks associate aging with CUPID—which, in this case, is an acronym for Cumulative, Universal, Progressive, Intrinsic, and Deleterious.
"You see a lot of changes through adolescence but really, none of them are deleterious until you start getting about 30," said the biological engineering professor. "Then, you start seeing decline, and not everything declines equally."
Head of the agricultural and biological engineering department since 1995, the Jackson native joined the MSU faculty in 1988 and began teaching an elective course on the dynamics of aging the following year. Sixteen students are enrolled in the class this fall.
"It's more of a general course on some of the ways that biomedical engineering impacts aging, and helps in the study of gerontology and geriatrics," Gilbert said, noting the class is among MSU offerings that may lead to a certification in gerontology.
Shawn W. Sanders of Jackson, a junior biological engineering major in Gilbert's class this fall, said, "What makes the course so unique is that it pulls from several fields such as biology, statistics and general engineering to explain why and how the human body ages."
Added Rebecca Pounders, a senior member of the class from Laurel: "The class looks at aging from both a biological and engineering perspective. This will be especially helpful in the rehabilitation engineering field."
Gilbert said he "hopes the students will get from the course what I do by teaching it; that is, a better appreciation of the complexities of the aging process and the fact there are things we can do as individuals right now that will impact how (well) we're going to be 50 or 60 years from now."
1973 Jackson Preparatory School graduate, Gilbert earned a bachelor's degree in biological engineering from MSU in 1977. He completed a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Duke University in 1982.
"I want students to go away with an understanding of the aging processes and realize that as engineers and scientists, there are things they can do to help with these processes," Gilbert said. "They can have an impact on both the prevention and treatment of conditions associated with aging."
Added Sanders: "It's just one of those big-picture courses that illustrate how all of the seemingly different courses do, in fact, have common ground and are all integral in studying something as systematic as the human body."
Gilbert is an expert in orthopedic biomechanics, a research field that analyzes the forces, stresses and deformations that occur in different structures of human and animal life. He utilizes that knowledge to help students consider how they might apply engineering principles to solve physiological problems associated with aging.
"We have to do things that don't disturb the natural way that a living system functions," he said. "We could be designing hardware, designing imaging equipment or modeling a system with an engineering systems approach to explain how the system functions.
"In terms of providing replacement organs and parts, as well as in the diagnostic and therapeutic equipment areas, biomedical engineering has helped develop some of the new devices that are used in the early detection of some of the diseases of aging," he continued. "You could be building a device to go inside the body, a replacement device such as a total hip implant or a device that transmits information back out of the body."
After lecturing for the first half of each class, Gilbert then encourages students to dominate the discussion. He divides them into groups of four or so to conduct research and make presentations on such health-related topics as artificial organs, artificial limbs, special senses, immune systems, the digestive tract, or respiratory system.
The teams also must develop computer Web pages that deal with such specific illnesses as heart disease, Alzheimer's, progeria, macular degeneration, cancer, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis; or address emerging scientific and ethical issues swirling around such emotionally charged areas as stem cell research.
"Because our students are engineers, there is always an interest in creating replacement parts such as artificial organs or limbs," said Gilbert. "Now, however, tissue engineering is really a step beyond that. Molecular biology and the genetic engineering aspect are very interesting. There's a growing realization that tissue-engineered solutions may be better than man-made materials."
Gilbert said he also strives in the course to make students more aware of the complex societal, sociological and demographic issues associated with aging in an American culture that is more oriented toward youth.
"We're going to have more older people than younger people in the United States in another 30 to 40 years," he predicted. "The whole country is going to have to start thinking about how we handle this older but still-productive part of society."
The professor said he enjoys challenging the perceptions and attitudes toward aging that many of his young students initially bring into his classroom.
"When I first started teaching the course, I'd ask them, 'What is middle age?' I'd get answers like '30 or 35.' We talk about aging and what old age is for the first two weeks, and it's really quite eye-opening for many of the students."
Gilbert said about a quarter of the university's biological engineering graduates usually advance to medical schools, while another "40 to 50 percent" opt for graduate studies in biomedical engineering. About 10 percent of the graduates enter the job market in such fields as pharmaceutical sales, production quality control and basic design.
"Engineers think about solving problems and are always trying to lay out solutions," he added. "They want to know what engineers can do to help solve the problem of aging."
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