Research and Biology Onboarding

Role Overview

The Research / Biology team ensures that all EMBS projects are scientifically valid, medically relevant, and ethically responsible. You act as the “bridge” between engineering and medicine: grounding technical builds in biology, physiology, and clinical context.

You don’t need to be a biology major, but you’ll learn how to navigate medical research, interpret biosignals, and ensure ethical safety in our student prototypes. This role prepares you for graduate research, industry R&D, or publishing with faculty mentors.

Why This Role Matters

  • Keeps projects grounded in science, not just circuits.
  • Ensures ethical responsibility and student safety.
  • Helps EMBS publish & present work that earns credibility.
  • Connects projects to faculty mentors → potential for IRB studies, funding, and real-world impact.

Responsibilities

  • Provide medical context for engineering teams (e.g., “What does this biosignal mean?”).
  • Perform literature reviews (PubMed, IEEE Xplore, Google Scholar).
  • Investigate methods & benchmarks (how real medical devices are tested).
  • Support ethical compliance (understand IRB, HIPAA, Purdue safety rules).
  • Assist with proposals (help teams generate credible research questions).
  • Write abstracts, reports, and posters for project deliverables and conferences.
  • Engage with faculty (seek advisors, identify potential PIs, or confirm feasibility).

Onboarding Process

  1. Learn → Study physiology, ethics, and literature review.
  2. Learning Check → Complete the learning check.
  3. Assignments → Submit article reviews and ethics considerations
  4. Review → Research lead checks submissions.
  5. Discord Update → Unlock “Research / Biology” role.

Skills to Learn

Physiology Basics

  • Heart rate, breathing, oxygen saturation (SpO₂).
  • Biosignals: ECG, EMG, EEG, PPG.
  • Audio diagnostics: heart sounds, lung sounds.

Literature Review

  • How to search PubMed & IEEE Xplore.
  • How to break down a paper (abstract → methods → results → limitations).
  • How to summarize findings for engineers.

Research Ethics & Safety

  • HIPAA basics (privacy & de-identification).
  • IRB process (when human subject work requires approval).
  • Purdue safety forms & lab rules.
  • Non-invasive data collection protocols.

Benchmarking & Validation

  • Clinical vs. hobbyist accuracy (what’s “good enough” for a demo vs. FDA-level).
  • Compare your team’s device against published standards.

Proposal Writing

  • Framing a research question.
  • Generating hypotheses.
  • Drafting methods sections.
  • Writing clear abstracts and posters.

Learning Resources:

Physiology Basics

Literature Review & Paper Reading

Research Ethics & Safety

Benchmarking & Validation

Play-by-Play Research Path

  1. Paper Review / Covidance
    • Learn to read and critique a scientific paper.
    • Practice identifying the abstract, methods, and key findings.
  2. Literature Review
    • Collect papers on your project topic (e.g., sleep apnea detection).
    • Organize findings into background & methods summaries.
  3. Research Question Generation
    • Use gaps in literature to propose a testable idea.
    • Example: “Can we use a microphone + SpO₂ sensor to detect apnea events?”
  4. Proposal Drafting
    • Write a structured proposal: background, methods, goals, expected results.
    • Share with your team and faculty mentor.
  5. Faculty Advisor / PI Engagement
    • Present your idea to professors.
    • Ask if they’d be willing to act as PI (Principal Investigator) or advisor.
    • Strong research ideas are more likely to secure mentorship.
  6. Ethics & IRB
    • If human subjects are involved → IRB approval is mandatory.
    • IRB requires a faculty PI and Purdue Human Research Protection Program forms.
    • If IRB is too ambitious → consider a Scoping Review (systematic review of published articles, no new subjects).
  7. Experiment / Data Collection
    • Run safe, small-scale tests (non-invasive sensors only).
    • Follow Purdue safety guidelines.
  8. Abstract & Poster
    • Summarize findings into a short abstract.
    • Build a research poster for EMBS showcase or a conference.

Learning Check

Fill out this google form to check your knowledge.

Old form

Assignment

  1. Mini Literature Review
    • Summarize 1 PubMed article + 1 IEEE Xplore paper.
    • Include background, method, results, limitations.
  2. Ethics Worksheet
    • Given a project idea (ideas here), list privacy, safety, and IRB considerations.
  3. Submit your work into this google form

Stretch Goals

  • Learn basic biostatistics (t-tests, ANOVA).
  • Draft mock IRB applications.
  • Practice scoping reviews (summarizing many papers systematically).
  • Collaborate with firmware/ML teams on feature extraction (what signals matter most).
  • Help write conference abstracts & competition posters.