Creative Education
2012. Vol.3, Supplement, 145-147
Published Online December 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ce) DOI:10.4236/ce.2012.37B038
145
Exploration on the Application-oriented Talent Training Mode
of Biological Engineering
Yan Guo, Changsheng Qiao, Dongguang Xiao, Min Wang, Shiru Jia,
Ning Chen, Zhilei Tan
College of Biotechnology, Tianjin University of Science & Technology, Tianjin, China
Received 2012
Aiming at the existing problems on professional talent training mode of bio-engineering in China ,with
the guidance of scientific concept of development ,combining with the development status and trends,
talent training objectives and mode of bio-engineering industry in China, basing upon the district of Bin-
hai new area, This paper introduces the useful explorations on professional bio-engineering talent training
mode of College of Biotechnology in Tianjin University of Science & Technology.
Keywords: Biological Engineering; Talent Training Mode; Practical Ability
Introduction
The contents of bio- engineering is taking advantage of the
combination of biological system, applied biol ogy, chemistry
and engineering technology, transforming and designing the
biological structure and function according to the human need,
in order to provide technologies of various of product for hu-
man need on the method of more economical, more efficient
and a large scale. It’s the key technology of biological technol-
ogical achievements towards the industrialization. Review of
China’s bio-engineering professional education in 10 y ears, it
should be recognized that the rapid development of
bio-engineering industry, surge in demand for professionals in
biological engineering. So talent training of biological engi-
neering should be moderate in advance to ensure that the talent
supply from source, but also pay attention to an appropriate
scale, should not over supply. At the present, there are universal
problems of biological engineering students as bad beginning
ability and lack of innovation ideology, so our college proposed
the talent training ideas as "enhance practice, value innovation,
and develop personality". It is aiming at training the senior
talent of engineering and technical who has good problem
solving ability, strong creative consciousness, and high sc ien-
tific literacy. Because of the features of strong engineering
application of biological engineering, it requires students to not
only grasp basic theory of biology, but also to accept strictly
practical training, to enhance and ensure the teaching quality.
Formulate the Training Targets
Biological engineering is an important part of high-tech -
biotech which our focus on the development of high and new
technologies in China. This profession is the system which
produce the materials that human need or applied to industrial
production through special features of modern engineering
techniques and use of biological (microbial and plant and ani-
mal cells). It developed with the combination of traditional
fermentation and modern genetic engineering, cell engineering
technology. The experimental area is located in the core area of
Tianjin Binhai New Area, giving full play to regional advan-
tages of Binhai New Area and seizing the opportunity. This
experimental area which is based on the Binhai New Area ser-
viced the Bohai Ring and radiated effect in Northwest, North-
east, and North China aiming at training high-level engineering
and technical talent who has good problem solving ability,
strong creative consciousness, and high scientific literacy in the
field of production and technology management, quality control,
product development, scientific research and engineering de-
sign. Enable students to have a solid foundation of knowledge,
true judgment and ability to solve practical problems. These
students should a lso have good communication skills, a spirit of
cooperation and some commercial and administrative leader-
ship. What’s more, they should be the innovative talent who
have lifelong learning skills and habits, be able to adapt and
capable of the changing occupational requirements.
Adjustment and Reform of Training Program
Adjust the Curriculum System and Widen Specialty
Ranges
According to the development tendency of biological engi-
neering, the traditional characteristics of our school and market
requirements of bio-engineering talent, we aim to enhance gen-
eral education, strengthen the foundation, widen specialty range
of the students, and improve students' creative potential, adap-
tability and flexibility of employment. We aim to train innova-
tive biological engineering talent who have solid foundation in
the professional fields of biotechnology and engineering,
bio-pharmaceutical engineering, food science and engineering,
environmental engineering, marine science, and many other
engineering disciplines by means of enhance students' profes-
sional basis engineering foundation and basic skills training.
Due to the adjustment of original curriculum system from
microbial system based system to the entire biological systems,
including enzymes, animal cells and pl ant cells, we added basic
biology, cell engineering courses. On the basis of original ma-
jor, we appropriately added the upstream technologies (such as

Y. GUO ET AL.
146
molecular biology, genetic engineering and other courses)and
downstream processing (such as bioseparation engineering
courses).
Establishing and improving the engineering training system
which consists of curriculum design of principles of chemical
engineering and bioengineering, biological engineering equip-
ment and biofactory design, we aim to strengthen students’
engineering design capabilities. We added biological analysis
experimental into biotechnology experiment and combined with
raw materials testing, process testing, product testing and
bio-technology experiment. It’s only enhanced the practical
effect of the experiment, but also exercise the students' experi-
mental operation capability, as well as the ability of analyze
and solve problems. According to the needs of the society, we
will further enhance the professional direction, and students'
interest as well as professional specifics to enable students to
adapt to market requirements on the basis of strengthens basic
education.
Improving the Practice Teaching and Strengthening
Project Ability Training
"Practice is the foundation of engineering" has become the
consensus of the international higher engineering education,
coupled with the development of China's economic requires a
lot of high-quality innovative engineering and technical talent
of bio-engineering spe cialty, so we should keep pace with the
times and changing concepts which aim to raise high-quality
engineering and technical talent with a strong sense of innova-
tion. We will also establish innovative bio-engineering teaching
idea that" practical teaching is as important as and theory
teaching" and “practice is the foundation of engineering profes-
sionals”. We will correct understand the role of practical teach-
ing on the training of innovative talent and fully affirm the
significant of practical teaching in bio-engineering undergra-
duate education, so the reform and development of biological
engineering practical teaching should be promoted.
Practical teaching system whic h consists of the course expe-
riment, internship, curriculum design, large professional expe-
riment and graduation practice will be further improved. The
practical teaching mode will also be changed from unit opera-
tional experiments to professional comprehensive test and fi-
nally to pilot-scale continuous production, from single equip-
ment design to complex system design.
Basic experimental skills training of course experiment
should be strengthened, increase the proportion of design and
comprehensive experiments, give full play to the initiative of
students, and change the assessment methods and the writing
mode of experimental report. Furthermore, the importance of
problem analysis and result discussion should be emphasized,
students’ creative thinking, innovation abi lity and the ability of
analy ze and solve problems should be developed.
In order to raise the quality of practice, we will extend the
practice time from one week to two weeks. In the first week
teachers will introduce the information of large biological dis-
cipline for third grade students by the help of electronic equip-
ments. Then in the second week the students will be taken to
the factory to get familiar with the production processes, so
that students will have a deep understanding of the process,
equipment, operation and ma nagement. It will also provide
them a reference of professional direction for the next ste p. It is
required that students in the process of practice in the factory
collect basic data as much as possible under the case of fac-
tory’s approval in order to lay a foundation for future profes-
sional course design.
The practical applicability of curriculum design should be
strengthened. The subject of professional curriculum design and
basic data (biological engineering equipment and biological
plant design) mainly come from production line of the factories,
so it has a strong practical applicability and comparability of
design results. It will also be able to stimulate students’ enthu-
siasm for learning.
We combined the original experimental teaching courses into
the large bio-engineering experiments which will perform for 3
weeks in the 7th semester. Students are divided into several
groups and assigned to the laboratories of every college. The
laboratories of every college will use their own advantages to
create the professional test derived from scientific research. The
unit operational experiments including biological analysis,
bio-reaction engineering principles and bioseparations engi-
neering will be merged into large process experiment. The stu-
dents not only obtained basic operational training of
bio-engineering and improved the practical abilities, but also
enhanced the ability of problem finding and problem solving.
The period of graduation should be emphasized. The key of
graduate design and thesis is to standardize the topic, so the
regulation of “one person, one question” should be strictly per-
formed. The topic should be chosen close connected with the
training objectives which need to combine with the theoretical
and professional knowledge, so it requires students to complete
the design and thesis independently under the guidance of
teachers.
Propel the Establishment of Personalized Talent
Training Mode
In order to meet students' individual development require-
ments and perform "Individualized" teaching concept , we
established individualized talents training mode which includ-
ing professional direction selection, current trends introduc-
tion of professional field, innovative experiment open system
and entrepreneurial training.
The first level: On the basis of strengthen the basic education,
we established different major fields on bio-engineering for the
senior students after finishing public elementary courses, espe-
cially the fourth grade students, according to the students' in-
terest and the social demand direction of talent. Thus students
can choose different major direction according to their personal
actual situation and interest under the guidance of professors.
We aim to determine the students' individual training objectives
and s et up training plans which varies from person to person.
We will also highlight the specialty on talent training in order
to cultivate talent with applied competence for the society.
The second level: We established multi-disciplinary devel-
opment forefront elective courses in order to introduce the lat-
est technology developments domestic and abroad, let the stu-
dents know the forefront theory of bio-engineering, teach pro-
duction processes of variety of main products in
bio-engineering and the latest technology and development
prospects. It also requested students to write special report of
bio-engineering development according to their interests.
The third level: We established the innovative experiments.

Y. GUO ET AL.
147
In order to develop students' practical ability and scientific
literacy, we allocate some students into different laboratories by
following the two-way choice principle in the third year of
students, so that they can use spare time for research projects.
The subject source can become the part of research project. Or
the student teams can put forward a proposal, and then turn to
laboratory work after the recognition of the professors.
The fourth level: the entrepreneurial training course for stu-
dents is on the basis of the internal training base. Under the
guidance of professors, the students’ entrepreneurial team, tak-
ing training base as the platform, simulates the enterprises of
production and operation management in a certain time.
Strengthen the Construction of Internal and External
Students’ Training Base and Enhance the Social
Service Function
The internal training base which consists of 500L anaerobic
fermentation system and 500L Anaerobic fermentation system
has the advantages of anytime, convenience and efficiency.
The internal training base is open to the students and public.
The technology testing and technology innovation activities
made by students and companies should be allowed and sup-
ported. The internal training base is on the basis of typical bio-
logical products. The students gain practice and training
through participated in research projects, pilot experiments and
production process. Thus the internal training base will become
the platform of practice teaching, as well as the platform of
new products, new technology and scientific research in order
to serve the society. On the other hand, we will esta blish the
long-term cooperation with enterprises and found stable exter-
nal training bases. The cooperation can be varied, such as the
school can help enterprises to solve some problems in the pro-
duction process, develop new products, train the required tal-
ents and open the laboratories. Otherwise, the enterprises, can
offer internships for students, as well as it can be and the test
base pilot of new product development for the school. Through
the way of combination with production, teaching and research,
the school can provide technical services for enterprises, so that
students can learn the typical biological production process
from the advanced domestic enterprises. Moreover, the students
will gain comprehensive upgrade on knowledge structure
and practical ability.
Giving full play to the function of both internal and external
training bases, it not only cou ld solve the problems of training
bases, but also have great significance in promoting the combi-
nation of teaching and scientific research, as well as the rapid
transformation of scientific research products.
Conclusion
According to the training objectives of the engineering talent,
the training of bio-engineering talent should embody the prin-
ciple of coordinated development among knowledge, capacity,
and quality. Appropriate knowledge syste m should be estab-
lished, so that the quality education of practical skills and engi-
neering capabilities will be performed. And design and con-
struction of knowledge structure should be strengthened, so that
each knowledge module constitutes an appropriate training
system. The te aching concept of “practical teaching is as im-
portant as and theory teaching" and “practice is the foundation
of engineering professionals” should be established. And we
also focus on basic theory, engineering knowledge and experi-
mental teaching, so that students’ capabilities of strong ana-
lyzing and solving engineering problems will be boosted. The
adjustments of curriculum system should combine with the
characteristics of regional economic development and under the
guidance of social needs on training mode reform. On the
occasion of large biological disciplines, the culture caliber
should be broadened, so that innovative talent training mode
which including people-oriented, individualized, flexible design
of curriculum system and personalized learning will be estab-
lished. Practical teaching system which consists of the course
experiment, internship, curriculum design, large professional
experiment and graduation practice will be further improved.
The practical teaching mode will also be changed from unit
operational experiments to professional comprehensive test and
finally to pilot-scale continuous production, from single
equipment design to complex system design. The combination
between teaching and scientific research should be promoted in
order to achieve the goal of scientific research assist teaching.
REFERENCES
Wells,John Henry,and Taylor. “First principles in biological engineer-
ing education,” Resource: Engineering and Technology for Sustaina-
ble World, v 3, n 4, Apr 1996; ISSN: 10763333.
Riley,and Mark R.“New designs on teaching biological engineering.”
ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings, p11043-11047, 2002, 2002
ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition:Vive L'ingenieur; ISSN:
01901052.
Christy,AnnD;Lima Marybeth,andAlocilja,Evangelyn C. “The use of
student portfolios to enhance learning, industrial ties, and accredita-
tion in biological engineering education” 2000 ASAE Annual Inter-
national Meeting, Technical Papers: Engineering Solutions for a New
Century, v 2, p 5227-5237.
常景玲, 李兰, 郭丹钊, 张志宏, 华承伟.生物工程实验课程教学改
革探索[J].实验科学与技术,2008(4):78-79.
贾士儒,许春英,乔长晟.搞好工科专业实践性教学的一点体会[J].天
津师范大学学报（增刊）,2007::249-250.