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.
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, […]
Danny Alge and Kristi Anseth publish “Thiol-X Reactions in Tissue Engineering” in RSC’s New Book Thiol-X Chemistries in Polymer and Materials Science
Kristi Anseth | Via University of Colorado Boulder | October 23, 2013Danny Alge and Kristi Anseth contributed a chapter to a new RSC book on using thiol-based chemistry in material science. This insightful chapter highlights power applications of this exciting chemistry in tissue engineering applications.
Study Finds Natural Compound Can Be Used for 3-D Printing of Medical Implants
Roger Narayan | Via NC State Newsroom | October 23, 2013Researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Laser Zentrum Hannover have discovered that a naturally-occurring compound can be incorporated into three-dimensional (3-D) printing processes to create medical implants out of non-toxic polymers. The compound is riboflavin, which is better known as vitamin B2. “This opens the door […]
Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Chairs Named
Robert Kirsch | Via Case Western Reserve University | October 22, 2013Case Western Reserve University has appointed Robert F. Kirsch chairman of the biomedical engineering department and Kenneth A. Loparo chairman of the electrical engineering and computer science department. Kirsch and Loparo are prolific researchers, proven leaders among their peers and consistently highly regarded in annual student reviews. “They are doers who will take action and […]
Duke Launches Global Women’s Health Technologies Center
Nimmi Ramanujam | Via Pratt School of Engineering | October 22, 2013Around the world, nearly 800 women die every day due to complications during pregnancy and childbirth—and even more from breast and cervical cancer. Duke’s expertise in biomedical engineering and global health are merging to address these issues and improve the lives of women by accelerating research in areas of women’s health, while increasing the number […]
Wyss Institute Core Faculty Member Elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
David Mooney | Via Wyss Institute | October 21, 2013David Mooney, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies, which is one of the highest […]
Northwestern Joins Network to Improve STEM Education
Robert Linsenmeier | Via Northwestern University | October 21, 2013Northwestern and 21 other universities that are part of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) recently received a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant will expand CIRTL, a nationwide collaboration with the goal of improving the education of the diverse populations of undergraduates who pursue degrees […]
Li Lab Shows Physical Cues Help Mature Cells Revert into Embryonic-Like Stem Cells
Song Li | Via UC Berkeley Bioengineering | October 21, 2013Professor Song Li and his research team have shown that physical cues can replace certain chemicals when inducing mature cells back to a pluripotent stage, capable of becoming any cell type in the body.
Physical Cues Help Mature Cells Revert into Embryonic-Like Stem Cells
Song Li | Via UC Berkeley Research | October 20, 2013Bioengineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that physical cues can replace certain chemicals when nudging mature cells back to a pluripotent stage, capable of becoming any cell type in the body. The researchers grew fibroblasts – cells taken from human skin and mouse ears – on surfaces with parallel grooves measuring 10 […]
Rice Scientists Create a Super Antioxidant
Vicki Colvin | Via Rice University | October 14, 2013Common catalyst cerium oxide opens door to nanochemistry for medicine Scientists at Rice University are enhancing the natural antioxidant properties of an element found in a car’s catalytic converter to make it useful for medical applications. Rice chemist Vicki Colvin led a team that created small, uniform spheres of cerium oxide and gave them a […]
New Drug-Delivery System Will Improve Lives of Patients with Chronic Eye Diseases
Tejal Desai | Via UC San Francisco | October 14, 2013Patients suffering from eye diseases such as glaucoma and macular degeneration benefit from the availability of highly effective medicines. However, the methods for delivering these drugs to the eye keep patients trapped in a cycle of constant maintenance with monthly injections or cumbersome eye drops multiple times a day. Robert Bhisitkul, MD, PhD, a professor […]
Miga Joins Editorial Board of New Medical Imaging Journal
Michael I. Miga | Via Vanderbilt University Engineering | October 13, 2013Michael Miga, professor of biomedical engineering, will serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Medical Imaging, a new publication of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. The journal will launch in early 2014 and cover fundamental and translational research and applications focused on photonics in medical imaging. JMI will be published […]
UTEP Faculty Members Benefit from Latest Round of Research Grants
Wei Qian | Via UTEP News | October 10, 2013The University’s rise toward Tier One research recognition continues with the dissemination of interdisciplinary research grants to groups of UTEP faculty engaged in critical collaborative work. The second of this year’s Interdisciplinary Research (IDR) Enhancement Program awards were announced in September by the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (ORSP). It marks the fourth round […]
Blood Vessel Cells Can Repair, Regenerate Organs, Say Weill Cornell Scientists
Sina Rabbany | Via Weill Cornell Medical College | October 8, 2013Damaged or diseased organs may someday be healed with an injection of blood vessel cells, eliminating the need for donated organs and transplants, according to scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College. In studies appearing in recent issues of Stem Cell Journal and Developmental Cell, the researchers show that endothelial cells — the cells that make […]
A Tiny, Time-Released Treatment
Omid Farokhzad | Via Harvard Gazette | October 8, 2013Omid Farokhzad’s vision of medicine’s future sounds a lot like science fiction. He sees medicine scaled down, with vanishingly small nanoparticles playing a big role, delivering drug doses measured in molecules directly to cancerous tumors. He sees “theranostic” particles that not only deliver nanotherapy, but also beam back diagnostic images of changing tumor cells. He […]
Cells Prefer Nanodiscs Over Nanorods
Krishnendu Roy | Via Georgia Tech News Center | October 7, 2013For years scientists have been working to fundamentally understand how nanoparticles move throughout the human body. One big unanswered question is how the shape of nanoparticles affects their entry into cells. Now researchers have discovered that under typical culture conditions, mammalian cells prefer disc-shaped nanoparticles over those shaped like rods. Understanding how the shape of […]
Hit-and-Run Action of Stem Cells Exploited for Targeted Drug Delivery
Jeffrey Karp | Via Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | October 7, 2013Scientists have inserted mRNA into mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to produce a drug delivery vehicle. Following systemic administration, the modified MSCs targeted and adhered to sites of inflammation, then released interleukin-10 that significantly reduced local swelling. Historically, MSC-based treatments have had mixed results. MSCs exert their therapeutic effects in hit-and-run style. That is, MSCs are […]
Four Advanced ERC Grants for Our SV Professors
Jeffrey Hubbell | Via École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne | October 4, 2013Four professors leading research groups at the Faculty of Life Sciences have been awarded an ADVANCED GRANT 2013 from the European Research Council (ERC), in recognition of their outstanding research performed at the EPFL… …Jeffrey Hubbell, head of the Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine & Pharmacobiology (Merck Serono Chair in Drug Delivery), for his research on […]