Metin Akay, Ph.D.

Metin Akay, founding chairman and John S. Dunn Endowed Chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Cullen College of Engineering, has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pécs, one of Europe’s oldest and most respected institutions of higher learning.

Akay was awarded the doctorate at a ceremony in Halasy-Nagy József Hall at the university on March 9. Akay delivered a speech to the students of the university as part of the ceremony… Continue reading.

The chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering has been elected to lead an international academy of his peers through September 2023.

Metin Akay, Ph.D., the founding chairman and the John S. Dunn Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, was elected chairman of the governing council for the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering (IAMBE). The organization consists of more than 200 fellows who are recognized for their exceptional contributions to biomedical engineering.

Akay said he was thrilled to be elected chairman.

“I am highly dedicated to increasing the global public awareness of how biomedical engineers impact healthcare innovations in collaboration with scientists, physicians, healthcare professionals, and industry leaders,” he said… Continue reading.

Prof. Akay, a well renowned scientist and engineer, has played a key role in promoting biomedical research and education in the world. He is currently the President of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology which is the oldest and largest Biomedical Engineering Society in the world. Prof. Akay was among the most cited in the world, according to an October 2020 update by researchers from Stanford about paper citations, indicating he was either among the top 100,000 overall in a composite index they developed and/or among the top 2 percent of Biomedical Engineering field.

Prof. Akay is a recipient of Honoris Causa from the Aalborg University and the IEEE EMBS Early Career and Service awards as well as an IEEE Third Millennium Medal and is a fellow of IEEE, the Institute of Physics (IOP), the American Institute of Medical Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In addition to his exceptional research activities in the areas of BRAIN research including addiction and brain chip as well as coronary artery disease, he dedicated his career to mentor, nurture and educate the next generation leaders in the field of Biomedical and Healthcare Engineering… Continue reading.

The IEEE EMBS Public Forum on Healthcare Tech Industry Trends will be held on August 25-28, 2021 and aims to highlight and discuss the challenges and opportunities of the healthcare tech industry, translation and commercialization with the participation of 24 healthcare tech leaders, entrepreneurs and influencers. Along with topical information, this forum will expose students and postdocs to the many career and networking opportunities in the global healthcare market.

The forum will have the following four symposiums

1. Innovative Medical Device Industry (25th)
2. Digital Health Industry (26th)
3. BioPharm Industry (27th)
4. NeuroTech Industry (28th)

In addition to plenary talks, we will have panel discussions at the end of symposiums.

We believe that the IEEE EMBS Forum will provide a unique platform for scientists, engineers and students to focus on translational data science and engineering research and healthcare innovations, as well as the need for a paradigm shift in engineering and science education and their impact on healthcare and economic growth.

Due to the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the organizing committee has decided to offer the workshop in a virtual format only to ensure a safe environment and to make participation possible for more people. We hope you will join us.

Metin Akay. Chair, IEEE EMBS Public Forum

The founding chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Houston is reporting a new deep neural network architecture that provides early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (SSc), a rare autoimmune disease marked by hardened or fibrous skin and internal organs. The proposed network, implemented using a standard laptop computer (2.5 GHz Intel Core i7), can immediately differentiate between images of healthy skin and skin with systemic sclerosis.

“Our preliminary study, intended to show the efficacy of the proposed network architecture, holds promise in the characterization of SSc,” reports Metin Akay, John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of biomedical engineering. The work is published in the IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology… Continue reading.

The Akay Lab biomedical research team at the University of Houston is reporting an improvement on a microfluidic brain cancer chip previously developed in their lab. The new chip allows multiple-simultaneous drug administration, and a massive parallel testing of drug response for patients with glioblastoma (GBM), the most common malignant brain tumor, accounting for 50% of all cases. GBM patients have a ?ve-year survival rate of only 5.6%.

“The new chip generates tumor spheroids, or clusters, and provides large-scale assessments on the response of these GBM tumor cells to various concentrations and combinations of drugs. This platform could optimize the use of rare tumor samples derived from GBM patients to provide valuable insight on the tumor growth and responses to drug therapies,” reports Metin Akay, John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of Biomedical Engineering and department chair. The paper is published in the inaugural issue of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society’s Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology… Continue reading.

Impact Statement:

Drug test on cancer spheroids in improved brain-chip demonstrate that the combined effect of temozolomide and NF-κB inhibitor on disrupting GBM spheroid formation outperforms each of the drugs alone.

Abstract:

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant primary brain tumor, accounting for 50% of all cases. GBM patients have a five-year survival rate of merely 5.6% and a median overall survival of 14.6 months with the “Stupp” regimen, 20.9 months with tumor treatment fields (TTF, OptuneR) in patients who participated in clinical trials, and 11 months for all GBM patients prior to TTF use. Objective: Our group recently developed a brain cancer chip which generates tumor spheroids, and provides large-scale assessments on the response of tumor cells to various concentrations and combinations of drugs. This platform could optimize the use of tumor samples derived from GBM patients to provide valuable insight on the tumor growth and responses to drug therapies. To minimize any sample loss in vitro, we improved our brain cancer chip system by adding an additional laminar flow distribution layer, which reduces sample loss during cell seeding and prevents spheroids from escaping from the microwells. Methods: In this study, we cultured 3D spheroids from GBM cell lines and patient-derived GBM cells in vitro, and investigated the effect of the combination of Temozolomide and nuclear factor-κB inhibitor on tumor growth. Results: Our study revealed that these drugs have synergistic effects in inhibiting spheroid formation when used in combination. Conclusions: These results suggest that the brain cancer chip enables large-scale, inexpensive and sample-effective drug screening to 3D cancer tumors in vitro, and could be applied to related tissue engineering drug screening studies… Read the full article.

Building an entirely new academic program has its benefits. Sure, some parts of the job can be difficult – handling everything from faculty searches to office supply orders is enough to make anyone’s head spin. But there’s a reason a clean slate is so valuable: you can write anything you want on it.

That’s the opportunity Metin Akay seized in 2010 when he became the founding chairman and John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of the Cullen College of Engineering’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. At that time, the department was little more than a name – just two faculty member, no staff and no firm curricula. A challenge, to be sure, but also the perfect situation to create the biomedical engineering department of the future.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has named Metin Akay, founding chair and John S. Dunn Endowed Chair Professor of the Cullen College’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, to its inaugural group of IEEE Brand Ambassadors.

Founded in January of this year, the Brand Ambassador’s program is designed to communicate the importance of engineers and engineering to those outside the profession and promote IEEE within the engineering world. Out of the IEEE’s worldwide membership of 400,000, the organization selected just 30 members representing different engineering fields and geographies to be ambassadors.

“The idea behind the program is to have a handful of people to promote the IEEE, to inform the society’s membership and the public at large about the achievements of engineers,” said Akay. “The main mission of the ambassadors is to be representatives of the society, to advocate for and promote IEEE and its achievements globally.”

Metin Akay, chair of the Cullen College’s Department of Biomedical Engineering, recently served as a keynote speaker at the first Middle East Conference on Biomedical Engineering.

The University of Houston Health Initiative has received a major boost from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which recently approved the establishment of a doctoral program in biomedical engineering at the UH Cullen College of Engineering…

…”Our program will discover, develop and deliver technological solutions aimed at reducing health care costs,” said Metin Akay, founding chair of the UH Department of Biomedical Engineering. “That’s the difference between our program and the more than 90 others in the United States.”

Just weeks into his post as John S. Dunn Distinguished Professor and founding chair of the University of Houston Department of Biomedical Engineering, Metin Akay is already being recognized.

He has been selected and will be inducted next month into two prestigious engineering and science organizations—the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).