The School of Biomedical Engineering of Southern Medical University (SMU), the predecessor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering of the First Military Medical University (FMMU), was founded in 1986, and is now one of the four distinctive disciplinary clusters of SMU. It has one postdoctoral research station, one doctoral degree authorization point and two master's degree authorization points. It has the Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Imaging and the Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education for Digital Diagnostic and Therapeutic Equipment. The college offers 6 majors in biomedical engineering (including 4 directions of medical imaging engineering, medical information engineering, medical instrumentation testing and medical physics), electronic information engineering and computer science and technology***, with more than 1,350 students, of which the biomedical engineering major is the first category of characteristic majors of the Ministry of Education of Higher Education, the Guangdong Province, and the annual enrollment is ranked the first in the country.
The college now has 9 professors, 27 associate professors, including 7 doctoral supervisors, 23 master's supervisors, and 5 experts enjoying special government subsidies. Professor Chen Wufan, the leader of the discipline, is the chief scientist of the National 973 Project. College of the existing Chinese Academy of Engineering dual-appointed academician 1 person, the national "973 project" Chief Scientist 1 person 2 times, the Chinese Society of Biomedical Engineering Executive Director 1 person, the Ministry of Education, the Executive Director of the Steering Committee for the Teaching of Higher Education Specialties 1 person, the Chinese Society of Image and Graphics Vice President 1 person, the People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department, three outstanding teachers.
The college offers 98 basic and specialized courses*** and 19 elective courses. There is a biomedical engineering innovation education base, open research laboratories to undergraduates. The Research on Cultivating Composite Talents Combining Science, Technology and Medicine won the second prize of National Teaching Achievements, and a distinctive talent cultivation model of five specialized directions has been established. The Systematic Planning and Practice of Characteristic Education of Biomedical Engineering Disciplines won the Second Prize of Guangdong Provincial Teaching Achievements, and the first institutionalized enterprise culture exchange and learning platform invites leaders of domestic famous biomedical engineering enterprises and international multinational companies to give lectures on enterprise culture to the college (about four times a year). There are national and provincial boutique courses "Modern Medical Imaging Technology", Guangdong Province postgraduate demonstration course "Medical Image Analysis", and digital diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, Ministry of Education Engineering Research Center. Biomedical Engineering is a famous brand specialty in Guangdong Province, approved by the Ministry of Education as the first type of characteristic specialty construction point of higher education, and the Experimental Technology Management Center of the College is rated as the Experimental Demonstration Center of Guangdong Province.
Now it has a first-class doctoral degree authorization point, postdoctoral mobile workstation, digital diagnostic and treatment equipment, Ministry of Education Engineering Research Center, and provincial key laboratories (is preparing to declare the national key laboratories), the discipline leader is the national key basic research development planning project (973 project), the chief scientist of Prof. Chen Wufan.
In the most recent national disciplinary assessment (2002), it gained an overall 8th place (the only institution in Guangdong Province to enter the top 10, including the 3rd place in scientific research). It has the All-Army Key Laboratory of Medical Imaging, the School-level Key Laboratory of Medical Information and Technology, the All-Army Testing and Research Center of Large-scale Medical Equipment, and the Measurement and Testing Research Station of Medical Sonography.
The college has formed a good situation of parallel development of medical image processing research, radiation therapy technology research, small medical instrument development, large medical equipment testing technology research and other directions. Since the "Tenth Five-Year Plan", the college has received 80 provincial and ministerial-level projects, with a funding amount of more than 72 million yuan, of which two of the national "973" projects*** chaired by Prof. Chen Wufan were funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology in the amount of 49 million yuan.
The College has received 18 scientific research awards, especially with the Medical Imaging Key Laboratory as the basis, the project declaration and the transformation of the results has achieved good results, has won the National Natural Science Foundation, the national "973 program" and the provincial and municipal science and technology programs related to the subject of funding. It owns 2 computer software copyrights and 11 patents, and "Research and Application of fPAX" was awarded the first prize of technical invention of National Science and Technology Award nominated by the Ministry of Education in 2005.
The college actively cooperates with enterprises and has set up "DuoDe Scholarship" and "Medical and Health Scholarship". The college widely solicits scientific research projects from enterprises, not only as a source of horizontal scientific research projects, but also as a source of projects for undergraduates' graduation design. The college has adopted a dual tutor system (one tutor from the company and one from the college).
The college has a building area of more than 12,000 square meters of office space, teaching and research equipment and other fixed assets worth more than 20 million yuan, Chinese and foreign language collection of 22,400 books, Chinese and foreign language periodicals 341 kinds.