AIMBE
Fellowbook News
AIMBE Fellowbook collects news stories highlighting the members of the AIMBE College of Fellows. Read the latest stories, jump to the College Directory, or search below to find the newest research, awards, announcements and more for the leaders of the medical and biological engineering community.
Antioxidant Biomaterial Promotes Healing
Guillermo Ameer | Via Northwestern McCormick Engineering | July 24, 2014When a foreign material like a medical device or surgical implant is put inside the human body, the body always responds. According to Northwestern’s Guillermo Ameer, most of the time, that response can be negative and affect the device’s function. “You will always get an inflammatory response to some degree,” said Ameer, professor of biomedical […]
Database of Pediatric MR Images Aids Diagnosis, Treatment
Mike Miller | Via Johns Hopkins, Department of Biomedical Engineering | July 24, 2014By building a “cloud database” of MR images collected from children with normal and abnormal brains, researchers aim to give physicians access to a Google-like search system that will improve the way pediatric brain disorders are diagnosed and treated. The project is being developed by a team of engineers and radiologists at Johns Hopkins University […]
Delivering Drugs on Cue
David Mooney | Via Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences | July 23, 2014Current drug delivery systems used to administer chemotherapy to cancer patients typically release a constant dose of the drug over time—but a new study challenges this “slow and steady” approach and offers a novel way to locally deliver the drugs “on demand,” as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Led […]
Desai Named Chair of Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences
Tejal Desai | Via UCSF News | July 23, 2014Tejal Desai, PhD, has been named the new chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences (BTS), a joint department within the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy and School of Medicine. Her appointment is effective August 1. “I am delighted Tejal will chair the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences,” said Chancellor Sam […]
Blanchard Heads Microchips
Cheryl Blanchard | Via Orthopedics This Week | July 23, 2014Cheryl Blanchard, Ph.D., Zimmer Holdings, Inc.’s former chief science officer, has been appointed CEO of MicroCHIPS, Inc. She also becomes a board member of the company. She replaces Brad Paddock, who is going to Stryker Spine to be the division’s general manager. Paddock had been MicroCHIP’s interim CEO since December 2013. MicroCHIPS developed a microchip-based […]
Dean Kamen: Don’t Blame Regulators for Stalling Medtech Innovation
Dean Kamen | Via MDDI | July 22, 2014Medtech inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen says the public needs to get a more realistic idea of what it takes to bring innovative medical devices to market. The medical device industry loves to beat up on FDA, but one person you won’t find lining up to take a shot at the agency is medtech inventor […]
On Capitol Hill, Keasling Calls for ‘national Initiative’ to Boost Bioengineering
Jay Keasling | Via Berkeley NewsCenter | July 21, 2014UC Berkeley professor and synthetic-biology pioneer Jay Keasling was on Capitol Hill Thursday, stressing the need for a federal strategy to ensure continued U.S. leadership in a field he said can yield significant medical benefits for people throughout the world, “and even save lives.” Keasling, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of bioengineering […]
This is Your Brain on Drugs
Hyongsok Soh | Via UC Santa Barbara | July 21, 2014We’ve all heard the term “addictive personality,” and many of us know individuals who are consistently more likely to take the extra drink or pill that puts them over the edge. But the specific balance of neurochemicals in the brain that spurs him or her to overdo it is still something of a mystery. “There’s […]
“gene Drives” and Crispr Could Revolutionize Ecosystem Management
George Church | Via Scientific American | July 17, 2014Genome engineering technologies have revolutionized genetics, biotechnology, and medical research. We may soon be able to alter not just domesticated species, but entire wild populations and ecosystems. Why, when and how might we use these novel methods to reshape our environment? The story begins with a new technology that has made the precise editing of […]
Two Pitt Programs Receive Awards
Michael Boninger | Via Pitt Chronicle | July 14, 2014Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg bestowed his 2014 Affirmative Action Award to two University programs: The Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the Career Education and Enhancement for Health Care Research Diversity Program (CEED). The chancellor commended the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation for its efforts to improve the lives of patients with mobility […]
Building the Test Kitchen for Medical Diagnostics
Catherine Klapperich | Via Boston University | July 14, 2014Catherine Klapperich moves fast, talks fast, and has at least 15 different ideas rolling through her head at the same time. How, for instance, can she keep her postdocs on track, guide 134 undergrads through their senior project, and meanwhile invent new technology that may change medicine as we know it? She arrived a few minutes […]
Omega 3 Supplements Could Offer Osteoarthritis Treatment Benefits
Farshid Guilak | Via Arthritis Research UK | July 11, 2014Scientists in the US have determined that omega-3 consumption could help to improve the joint health of patients with osteoarthritis. Carried out by Duke University in North Carolina, the study – published in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases – has shed further light on the established relationship between obesity and arthritis, suggesting that unhealthy […]
Tracking Osteoarthritis with Nanoparticles
Mark Grinstaff | Via Boston University | July 10, 2014A chronic disease afflicting more than 27 million Americans and 630 million worldwide, osteoarthritis occurs as the protective cartilage coating on joints in the knees, hips and other parts of the body degrades. No cure for osteoarthritis exists, but treatments can slow its progression, reduce pain and restore joint functioning. Now a team of researchers […]
UA National Society of Black Engineers Wins Robotics Contest
Wolfgang Fink | Via University of Arizona | July 9, 2014Team’s ingenious use of bicycle dynamo light principle improves gas pipeline inspection robots. College students often have several months to prepare for national competitions. The UA chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, or NSBE, had only two — and the team went on to win the 2014 NSBE Undergraduate Technical Research Competition in […]
Beyond Bacteria
James Collins | Via Boston University | July 7, 2014At the heart of synthetic biology is the assembly of genetic components into “circuits” that perform desired operations in living cells, with the long-term goal of empowering these cells to solve critical problems in healthcare, energy, the environment and other domains, from cancer treatment to toxic waste cleanup. While much of this work is done […]
Peppas Wins the 2014 Giulio Natta Medal in Chemical Engineering
Nicholas Peppas | Via University of Texas at Austin | July 5, 2014Professor Nicholas Peppas, the Fletcher Stuckey Pratt Chair in Engineering and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has won the 2014 Giulio Natta Medal in Chemical Engineering from the Chemistry, Material and Chemical Engineering Department “Giulio Natta” CMIC of the Politecnico Di Milano.The Giulio Natta Medal is given in recognition of outstanding contributions to […]
Salamone Elected to National Academy of Inventors
Joseph Salamone | Via University of Texas at Austin | July 2, 2014Joe Salamone, Ph.D., an adjunct professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and a member of the department’s External Advisory Committee, has been elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Salamone is a leading pioneer in the development of novel biomaterials for ophthalmology and for wound care, having commercialized 45 products in […]
Carnegie Mellon’s Philip Leduc Selected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Philip LeDuc | Via Carnegie Mellon | July 2, 2014Carnegie Mellon University Mechanical Engineering Professor Philip LeDuc has been selected a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). ASME is an international society with more than 140,000 members around the world. Its goal is to serve the global community through advancing and applying engineering principals to the problems that face our world […]
Advancing Medicine, Layer by Layer
Paula Hammond | Via Phys Org | July 2, 2014Personalized cancer treatments and better bone implants could grow from techniques demonstrated by graduate students Stephen W. Morton and Nisarg J. Shah, who are both working in chemical engineering professor Paula Hammond’s lab at MIT. Morton’s work focuses on developing drug-carrying nanoparticles to target hard-to-treat cancers—such as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)—while Shah develops coatings that […]
Streamlining Engineering Product Development
Arthur Rosenthal | Via Boston University | July 1, 2014When researching anatomical data to develop new biomedical devices, engineers have no universally accepted, reliable resource to rapidly and consistently obtain the information they need. So Benjamin Hertz and Bhavesh Patel, two students in BE 700, Advanced Biomedical Design and Development, have proposed a solution: a software tool called “Interactive Virtual Human” that provides an […]