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.
Rice BIOE Announces its 2013 Alumni Awards in Bioengineering
Konstantinos Konstantopoulos | Via Rice Bioengineering | September 30, 2013The Rice University Department of Bioengineering announces the recipients of its alumni awards for excellence in research, teaching, service or significant contributions to academia, society, or the bioengineering industry. The 2013 winners include: Konstantinos Konstantopoulos for Distinguished Bioengineering Alumnus, Eric Darling for Outstanding Graduate Alumnus and Kimberly Hsu for Outstanding Undergraduate alumna. Konstantinos Konstantopoulos (Rice Ph.D. […]
Biochar Quiets Microbes, Including some Plant Pathogens
Kyriacos Zygourakis | Via Rice University News | September 30, 2013In the first study of its kind, Rice University scientists have used synthetic biology to study how a popular soil amendment called “biochar” can interfere with the chemical signals that some microbes use to communicate. The class of compounds studied includes those used by some plant pathogens to coordinate their attacks. Biochar is charcoal that […]
KAIST Team Produces Gasoline Using E. coli
Sang Yup Lee | Via The Korean Herald | September 30, 2013A group of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has discovered a way to produce gasoline using bacteria for the first time, the school announced. The finding, published online in the journal Nature on Sunday, could mark a step toward developing new renewable energy. The research team led by Lee Sang-yup, […]
Novel Technology to Produce Gasoline by a Metabolically-Engineered Microorganism
Sang Yup Lee | Via Science Daily | September 29, 2013For many decades, we have been relying on fossil resources to produce liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, and many industrial and consumer chemicals for daily use. However, increasing strains on natural resources as well as environmental issues including global warming have triggered a strong interest in developing sustainable ways to obtain fuels and chemicals. […]
Grant to Rice, UTHealth will Push Regenerative Medicine
Antonios Mikos | Via Rice University News | September 27, 2013A $75 million Department of Defense grant to improve technologies to treat soldiers injured on the battlefield and advance care for the public will involve bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The five-year Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) grant announced today by the lead […]
Biochar Could Offer Solutions in Haiti
Sue Nokes | Via UK AG News | September 27, 2013Even before the 7.0 earthquake in 2010, deforestation in Haiti was a huge problem. Over the past 50 years, forested land in the country has fallen from 60 percent to a mere 1 percent. This situation creates all kinds of problems including soil erosion to the tune of 15,000 acres of topsoil washed away each […]
Sheikh Zayed Institute at Children’s National Receives FDA Grant To Form Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium
William Bentley | Via Children's National | September 26, 2013The Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children’s National Health System has received a grant from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to form the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation. The grant is for $700,000 for FY2013, as part of an anticipated five year award… …The NCC-PDI will be a collaboration […]
Programming Genetic Code Can Lead to Better Designer Genes
George M. Church | Via Harvard Gazette | September 26, 2013Reprogramming bacteria to produce proteins for drugs, biofuels, and more, has long been part of the job for bioscientists, but for years they have struggled to get those bugs to follow orders. Those days may be over. It turns out that a hidden feature of the genetic code controls how much of the desired protein […]
UT Arlington Researchers Successfully Test Model for Implant Device Reactions
Liping Tang | Via UT Arlington | September 23, 2013A team from the University of Texas at Arlington has used mathematical modeling to develop a computer simulation they hope will one day improve the treatment of dangerous reactions to medical implants such as stents, catheters and artificial joints. The work resulted from a National Institutes of Health-funded collaboration by research groups headed by Liping […]
Grant to Explore Better Methods for Delivering Antidotes After Chemical Attacks
Joseph DeSimone | Via University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | September 19, 2013A new $4.47 million project at UNC-Chapel Hill, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, will help lay the groundwork for developing potentially better ways to deliver antidotes against exposure to chemical weapons. The work could ultimately help both civilian and military populations through the design of precisely engineered particles and microneedle patches that are […]
Two New NSF Grants Allow Bayly to Study Brain Biomechanics
Philip V. Bayly | Via Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom | September 18, 2013The human body has a lot of jobs to do, and its mechanical features, such as strength and flexibility, are important to how well it does them. Washington University in St. Louis engineers are now applying a new imaging technique to a model of brain tissue to see how stiff or soft it might be. […]
ACL Repair: A Game Changer?
Martha Murray | Via Boston Children's Hospital | September 18, 2013The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a powerhouse and the perplexing nexus of a sports injury epidemic. Providing primary stability across the knee joint, the ACL is remarkably susceptible to rupture or tear, with more than 400,000 surgical reconstructions performed annually in the U.S. In the 2013 National Football training camps, more than a dozen […]
Motor Control Development May Extend into Late Adolescence, Study Finds
Francisco J. Valero-Cuevas | Via University of Southern California News | September 18, 2013The development of fine motor control — the ability to use your fingertips to manipulate objects — takes longer than previously believed and isn’t entirely the result of brain development, according to a pair of complementary studies by USC researchers. The studies open up the potential to use therapy to continue improving the motor control […]
MIT’s Langer Wins Top Honor, Palmaz Award for Innovation in Healthcare and Biosciences
Robert Langer | Via Boston Business Journal | September 18, 2013BioMed SA will award its eighth Julio Palmaz Award for Innovation in Healthcare and the Biosciences to Robert S. Langer on Wednesday. Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs one of the largest research labs at the internationally acclaimed institution. The award, named after Palmaz Stent inventor Dr. […]
Tracking Hallucinations Inside the Brain
Vince D. Calhoun | Via University of New Mexico | September 16, 2013What happens in your brain when you hear voices that aren’t there? What happens when you see things that no one else sees around you? People with some mental illnesses struggle every day to separate reality from hallucinations and it appears those hallucinations trigger activity in specific parts of the brain. Distinguished Professor of Electrical […]
Studying Tumor Mutations via a Network Approach
Trey Ideker | Via Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | September 16, 2013Researchers at the University of California-San Diego have developed a novel strategy to identify cancer subtypes not by the single mutations of individual patients, but by how those mutations affect shared genetic networks or systems. They published their paper (“Network-based stratification of tumor mutations”) in the September 15 advanced online edition of Nature Methods. “Somatic […]
Gene Networks Predict Cancer Prognosis
Trey Ideker | Via UT San Diego | September 15, 2013Better cancer treatments can be found by studying the genetic networks they involve, according to a study published Sunday by UC San Diego researchers. While individual cancer patients vary greatly in the precise mutations that drive tumors, they can be grouped into similar genetic networks that mesh with response to therapy, stated the study, published […]
Matthew Tirrell Named Pritzker Visiting Scientist-Inventor-Engineer at Parker School
Matthew Tirrell | Via UChicago News | September 12, 2013The University of Chicago’s Matthew Tirrell has accepted an invitation to serve as the Robert A. Pritzker Visiting Scientist-Inventor-Engineer in Residence at the Francis W. Parker School for the 2013-14 school year. Tirrell, the Pritzker Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering, will present a public lecture on Monday, Oct. 28 and will interact with students through […]
Unraveling Cancer Through Network Models
Trey Ideker | Via BioTechniques | September 11, 2013In many ways, cancer is simply a devastating natural mutagenesis experiment. Alterations to genes and their products, as well as additional downstream modifications, lead to dangerous and deadly consequences. From recent studies, we know there are a few key cancer drivers, genes such as p53 and Ras that have central roles within the genetic pathways […]