Gerard Cote, Ph.D.

A Texas A&M University System-led consortium of industry, government partners and universities has been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center (ERC) on Precise Advanced Technologies and Health Systems for Underserved Populations (PATHS-UP), with the goal of addressing the grand challenge of overcoming the human and economic burden of diabetes and heart disease in underserved communities.

Institutional partners in PATHS-UP include Florida International University, Rice University and the University of California at Los Angeles, along with several companies and other federal agencies.

“The ERC is the most significant NSF research grant an institution can receive in engineering and is a tremendous endorsement of the quality research being conducted within the Texas A&M System’s engineering program,” said Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp. “This program is dedicated to helping underserved populations in rural and urban areas achieve greater access to health enhancing technologies and systems that aligns perfectly with our values as a land grant institution.”

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PATHS-UP will be led by Director Dr. Gerard Coté, a Texas A&M professor of biomedical engineering, and will be housed in the Health Technologies Building, a newly renovated, state-of-the-art, 25,000-square foot building located in Texas A&M’s Research Park.

“Dr. Cote has a proven track record in developing innovation ecosystems driven by stakeholder input with a clear goal of commercialization of health-enhancing technologies,” said Dr. M. Katherine Banks, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Engineering… Continue reading.

An MRI-guided laser system that allows surgeons to perform brain surgery on tumors and epileptic lesions in the brain is expected to become widely available to patients in need now that the technology has been acquired from Visualase Inc. by the global medical device company Medtronic, Inc., says a biomedical engineering professor from Texas A&M University who co-founded the company responsible for the technology.

The technology, says Gerard Coté, professor in the university’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Center for Remote Healthcare Technology, enables surgeons to pinpoint and destroy brain tumors and lesions with extreme precision and is a much less-invasive alternative to conventional surgery. 

The advantage of this approach over other approaches for brain surgery, Coté explains, is that it can be performed while the patient is awake, requires no radiation and no skull flap (the large opening in traditional craniotomies), and is often performed in otherwise inoperable areas of the brain.

The painful finger-pricks diabetics are forced to endure when checking their blood sugar levels could become a thing of the past thanks to the work of engineering researchers at Texas A&M.

Gerard Coté, Charles H. & Bettye Barclay Professor and head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Michael Pishko, Stewart & Stevenson Professor II in biomedical engineering are working on a new less invasive way to monitor blood sugar levels that could alleviate the bothersome finger-pricks for patients.

The team is developing a process that would allow individuals to check their blood sugars with the mere glance at a wristwatch-like meter.

KAMU TV and Brazos Valley Magazine, a weekly community affairs show, will air an interview with biomedical engineering department head Dr. Gerard Coté, April 26, 28, and 29 and May 5 and 6. Coté will discuss his work in optical sensors for in vitro and in vivo medical diagnosis and monitoring.

Dr. Gerard L. Coté, head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Charles H. & Bettye Barclay Professor, has been elected to the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Class of 2011 Fellows.

Dr. Gerard L. Coté, Charles H. & Bettye Barclay Professor and Head of Biomedical Engineering was awarded a 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award in the category of Research given by the Association of Former Students and Texas A&M University.