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.
Stanford geneticist Leonard Herzenberg dies
Leonard Herzenberg | Via paloaltoonline | November 12, 2013Leonard Herzenberg, a retired geneticist whose discoveries are said to have kept thousands of people alive, died Oct. 27 at Stanford University Hospital, where he had been since Oct. 8 after suffering a severe stroke. He was 81. A retired professor at Stanford School of Medicine, Herzenberg helped develop the first fluorescence-activated cell sorter, enabling […]
Karp Receives Honor for Reader App Competition
Jeffrey Karp | Via Brigham & Women's Hospital | November 8, 2013Jeffrey Karp, PhD, associate professor in BWH’s Department of Medicine, has been honored as the runner up in the Cell Press Reader App Competition. Karp conceived of an app that would list the top ten papers with the most citations that week, in the Cell Press Journal Reader App. His idea is to list the […]
Karp and Pomahac Win Innovative Product of the Year Award
Jeffrey Karp | Via Brigham and Women's Hospital | November 8, 2013Jeffrey Karp, PhD, of the Division of Biomedical Engineering in BWH’s Department of Medicine, and Bohdan Pomahac, MD, director of Plastic Surgery Transplantation, have been honored with the Innovative Product of the Year Award from the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) for their research on worm-inspired microneedle tissue adhesives. These adhesives have the potential to […]
Before Cells, Biochemicals May Have Combined in Clay
Dan Luo | Via Cornell Chronicle | November 7, 2013Clay – a seemingly infertile blend of minerals – might have been the birthplace of life on Earth. Or at least of the complex biochemicals that make life possible, Cornell biological engineers report in the Nov. 7 online issue of the journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature Publishing. “We propose that [in early geological history] […]
Clotting Protein Hardens Aging Hearts
Jane Grande-Allen | Via Rice University News | November 7, 2013Heart valves calcify over time, and Rice University scientists are beginning to understand why. The Rice lab of bioengineer Jane Grande-Allen found through studies of pigs’ heart valves that age plays a critical role in the valves’ progressive hardening, and the problem may be due to the infiltration of a protein known as von Willebrand factor (VWF). […]
Open-Access Genome Project Lands in UK
George M. Church | Via Nature | November 7, 2013In 2008, a group of prominent scientists and entrepreneurs announced, after careful consideration, that they would make their genome sequences public, marking the launch of the Personal Genome Project (PGP). The “open source” genomics effort sought to make the genomes and medical histories of 100,000 people available for anyone to use. It was started by […]
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Georges Belfort Elected Fellow of AIChE
Georges Belfort | Via RPI News | November 6, 2013World-leading bioseparations expert Georges Belfort, Institute Professor and a member of the Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was recently elected a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). In a citation, the AIChE recognized Belfort for “seminal contributions in chemical molecular engineering, bioseparations engineering and […]
Keasling, in Israel, Looks to Future of Alternative Energy
Jay Keasling | Via UC Berkeley News Center | November 4, 2013Jay Keasling, a UC Berkeley professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of bioengineering and the chief executive officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute, was in Israel last week to deliver a keynote address at an international conference on biofuels. The Agro-Energy Nexus Summit, in the city of Herzilya, was convened by the Fuel Choices […]
Breakthrough in Retinal Implants Expected to Restore Sight to the Blind
Wolfgang Fink | Via Arizona Engineer | November 1, 2013Retinal implants have not lived up to their potential, argues a joint UA-German research team, until now. Researchers at the University of Arizona and University of Tübingen have made a breakthrough in retinal implant technology that could help people who have lost their sight see more than just light and vague shapes. Wolfgang Fink, an […]
Innovation in Regulation Applied to Descending Thoracic Aortic Endografts
Dorothy Abel | Via Endovascular Today | November 1, 2013FDA Regulatory Review Scientist Dorothy B. Abel discusses what led to the unique expanded approval of a thoracic endograft and a landmark postapproval study. In September 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) broadened its approval of the Gore TAG thoracic endoprosthesis (Gore & Associates, Flagstaff, AZ) to remove the exclusion of repair of […]
Nanoparticles Attack Aggressive Tumors
Paula Hammond | Via MIT Library News | October 31, 2013MIT chemical engineers have developed a new treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer whose tumors resist chemotherapy drugs. Led by David H. Koch Professor in Engineering Paula Hammond, the team designed nanoparticles that pack a one-two punch: They deliver a cancer drug along with short strands of RNA that shut off genes used […]
Orthogen LLC Announces Dr. Sachin Mamidwar as New CEO of Company
Sachin Mamidwar | Via SBWire | October 29, 2013Orthogen LLC, a leading provider of bone graft material for dental applications, is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sachin Mamidwar as new CEO of the company. Previous CEO and Chairman of the Board of Orthogen LLC, Dr. Harold Alexander said, “The opinion of the owners was unanimously positive. It is with great pleasure […]
NIH Awards $6.4 Million Grant for Raman Flow Cytometry
John Nolan | Via La Jolla Bioengineering Institute | October 29, 2013The National Institute of Biological Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded more than $6.4 million for the continuation of the Bioengineering Research Partnership (BRP) Raman Flow Cytometry for Drug Discovery and Diagnostics. This multidisciplinary effort, led by LJBI Professor John Nolan, aims to extend the capabilities for multiplexed and […]
Bioengineering Department Renamed Department of Biomedical Engineering
Cheng Dong | Via Penn State News | October 28, 2013The Department of Bioengineering has been renamed the Department of Biomedical Engineering after being approved by the Penn State Board of Trustees. Cheng Dong, distinguished professor of biomedical engineering and head of the department, said the name change more accurately reflects the program’s teaching and research efforts, with a vision that the department will be […]
MEDIC to Kick-Start Personalised Medicine Revolution
Hyongsok Soh | Via Royal Society of Chemistry | October 27, 2013A sensor that can continuously monitor the concentration of a drug in the bloodstream is set to help personalised medicine take off. This technology will let doctors tailor drug treatment courses for each patient with exceptional precision and according to how fast they excrete or metabolise different medicines. Continuous, real time monitoring of specific molecules […]
Farokhzad Awarded Nanotechnology Prize
Omid Farokhzad | Via Brigham and Women's Hospital | October 25, 2013Omid Farokhzad, MD, director of the Laboratory of Nanomedicine and Biomaterials at BWH and associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, was recently named one of two 2013 Laureates of the RUSNANOPRIZE, the largest international nanotechnology prize, for his work in advancing nanoparticle technologies. Farokhzad is being recognized in the field of Nanomaterials and Surface Modification […]
Edward F. Leonard: Developing an Artificial Kidney
Edward Leonard | Via Columbia University | October 25, 2013Nearly 500,000 Americans depend for their lives on thrice-weekly, in-clinic kidney dialysis to remain alive. The treatment is costly ($23 billion a year—or about $46,000 per person), very demanding, and provides only a low quality of life. Some 80,000 Americans are on waiting lists for kidney transplants, with 4,000 dying each year before they get […]
Why Engineers Want To Put B Vitamins In 3-D Printers
Roger Narayan | Via NPR | October 25, 2013Almost every day it seems there’s a new use for 3-D printing. In medicine, the printers are already making prosthetic hands, hearing aid cases and parts of human ears. But the materials used in some 3-D printing processes could be toxic to humans, particularly if the products get inside the body. So researchers have been […]
Not All Blood Vessels Are Created Equal: Groundbreaking Research of Endothelial Cells May Someday Lead to Elimination of Organ Transplants
Sina Rabbany | Via Hofstra University | October 25, 2013Research by a group of scientists, including Dr. Sina Rabbany, Hofstra’s Jean Nerken Professor of Engineering and Director of the Bioengineering Program, and his colleagues from Weill Cornell Medical College, found that damaged or diseased organs may someday be restored with an injection of endothelial cells – the cells that make up the structure of […]
Bioinformatics Breakthrough: High Quality Transcriptome from as Few as Fifty Cells
Shankar Subramaniam | Via UC San Diego | October 24, 2013Bioengineers from the University of California, San Diego have created a new method for analyzing RNA transcripts from samples of 50 to 100 cells. The approach could be used to develop inexpensive and rapid methods for diagnosing cancers at early stages, as well as better tools for forensics, drug discovery and developmental biology. The protocols, […]