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.
George Church on the Future of Stem Cells
George M. Church | Via MIT Technology Review | September 14, 2011Q&A with the Harvard geneticist. Earlier this year, I had breakfast with George Church, professor of genetics and director of the Center for Computational Genetics at Harvard Medical School. (Click here to read my profile of Church in the New York Times.) A pioneer in developing DNA sequencing technologies, and in researching everything from epigenetics […]
Professors Agrawal and Ramkrishna Elected Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Academy of Engineering
Doraiswami Ramkrishna | Via Purdue Engineering | September 9, 2011Rakesh Agrawal, the Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, and Doraiswami Ramkrishna, the Harry Creighton Peffer Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, have been elected as Foreign Fellows of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.
Pratt Team Receives Grant for HIV Treatment ‘Pouch’
Robert Malkin | Via Duke Chronicle | September 6, 2011Thousands of lives may soon be saved through an action as simple as tearing open a packet of ketchup. Over the past three years, researchers at the Pratt School of Engineering have developed a small foil packet, called a “Pratt pouch,” that holds single drug doses to give to newborn babies of HIV-positive mothers—significantly reducing […]
Lin Uses Imaging Technology to Chart Brain Development
Weili Lin | Via UNC Gazette | September 2, 2011Few people can say they have turned their favorite childhood hobby into a career. But Weili Lin still spends his days taking pictures, just as he did as a kid. Only now, the images he captures are of the developing brain, not rocks and dragonflies. Lin, director of the Biomedical Research Imaging Center (BRIC), uses […]
Violence of the Lambs
Barbara Oakley | Via Times Higher Education | September 1, 2011Polyglot polymath and scholar Barbara Oakley takes a incisive look at the cult of the victim. Matthew Reisz reports When the National Enquirer reported on a Utah trial in April 2007 under the lurid headline “Woman Marries for Love – THEN KILLS FOR SURVIVAL”, it seemed to be exactly what Barbara Oakley was looking for. […]
Glowing, Blinking Bacteria Reveal How Cells Synchronize Biological Clocks
Jeff Hasty | Via UC San Diego News Center | September 1, 2011Biologists have long known that organisms from bacteria to humans use the 24 hour cycle of light and darkness to set their biological clocks. But exactly how these clocks are synchronized at the molecular level to perform the interactions within a population of cells that depend on the precise timing of circadian rhythms is less […]
Game Change: On the Verge of a Revolution
Sylvia K. Plevritis | Via Stanford Medicine | September 1, 2011Sylvia Plevritis was excited. It was December 2003, and she had just learned that the National Cancer Institute was offering millions of dollars to researchers in a variety of non-biological fields to study how cancerous tumors behave and grow. She told her boss, Gary Glazer, MD, chair of Stanford’s radiology department, “This is my Christmas […]
Making Good
Kenneth Lutchen | Via Bostonia | September 1, 2011First, Ken Lutchen gave engineering students a more meaningful education. Now he wants them to have more meaningful lives. What works in a lab doesn’t always work in the field. That’s lesson number one Amy Canham brought back from Zambia when she went to the African nation two years ago to figure out the best […]
Grant Bolsters Liver Tumor Surgery Techniques
Michael I. Miga | Via Vanderbilt University Engineering | August 29, 2011A team led by Vanderbilt University biomedical engineer Michael Miga, Ph.D., has been awarded a five-year, $3.1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to enhance image-guided surgery techniques for safely removing liver tumors. While aggressive surgery is a highly effective treatment, it risks injury to the liver, which can lead to post-operative liver failure. […]
Engineering New Weapons in the Fight Against Juvenile Diabetes
B. Wayne Bequette | Via Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | August 26, 2011Engineering researchers at Rensselaer are combining automation techniques from oil refining and other diverse areas to help create a closed-loop artificial pancreas. The device will automatically monitor blood sugar levels and administer insulin to patients with Type 1 diabetes, and aims to remove much of the guesswork for those living with the chronic disease. For […]
Champions in Health Care: Jeffrey Karp, Innovator
Jeffrey Karp | Via Boston Business Journal | August 26, 2011Although Jeffrey Karp knew from childhood that he wanted to be a medical man, it was almost pure chance that led him to the field of bioengineering. “While studying for an exam in a coffee shop, I overheard some colleagues discussing tissue engineered organs, drug delivery and ‘artificial blood substitutes,” said Karp, now co-director of […]
KU Researchers Work to Increase Durability of Newer Dental Fillings
Paulette Spencer | Via University of Kansas News | August 23, 2011A team of researchers at the University of Kansas is hoping to curb tooth decay – while saving dental patients thousands of dollars – by working to improve the material used by dentists to fill cavities. Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Bioengineering Research Center Paulette Spencer and Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical […]
Profs. Konofagou & Carloni Receive National Honors
Elisa E. Konofagou | Via Columbia University Engineering | August 18, 2011Two Columbia Engineering professors are among the 85 nationwide selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 17th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium next month in California. The NAE selected Elisa Konofagou, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and radiology, and Luca Carloni, associate professor of computer science, from among the […]
Mimicking Biological Complexity, in a Tiny Particle
Ali Khademhosseini | Via Massachusetts Institute of Technology | August 15, 2011Tiny particles made of polymers hold great promise for targeted delivery of drugs and as structural scaffolds for building artificial tissues. However, current production methods for such microparticles yield a limited array of shapes and can only be made with certain materials, restricting their usefulness. In an advance that could broadly expand the possible applications […]
Seeking a Safer Future for Electricity’s Coal Ash Waste
Sudipta Seal | Via National Geographic Daily News | August 15, 2011People don’t usually see the ash left over from the electricity that’s burned when they turn on their lights or run their air conditioners. But at coal power plants, fly ash builds up every day, laced with heavy metals and toxins—one of the most difficult waste-management issues in the developed world. In the United States, […]
UNC Scientist to Partner on Nanoparticle Vaccine for Prostate Cancer
Joseph DeSimone | Via UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center | August 15, 2011University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researcher Joseph DeSimone, PhD, will partner with scientists at two universities and a local biotechnology company to develop a nanoparticle vaccine for prostate cancer. The Prostate Cancer Foundation awarded the UNC-Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard-Johns Hopkins-Liquidia Technologies consortium a Challenge Award of $1 million, one of ten such […]
Emery N. Brown, MD, PhD Receives the 2011 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research
Emery Brown | Via National Institute of Statistical Sciences | August 10, 2011The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) has presented the 2011 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research to Dr. Emery N. Brown of MIT and Harvard. Susan Ellenberg, chair of the Board of Trustees, announced the award at the 2011 Joint Statistical Meetings in Miami, Florida. The annual award, named in honor of Jerome (Jerry) […]
Teaming Up to Build 3-D Nanomaterials: Research Team Led by Prof. Dai Wins $7+ million Research Grant
Liming Dai | Via Case Western Reserve University | August 9, 2011A national team of experts, led by a Case Western Reserve University researcher, has received a multi-million-dollar grant to bring unrivaled qualities found in one- and two-dimensional nanomaterials into three dimensions. The scientists’ goal is to produce new materials for a host of uses, ranging from high-efficiency batteries, ultracapacitors, fuel cells and hydrogen storage devices […]
Five Georgia Tech Faculty Appointed Regents’ Professors, Researchers
Suzanne Eskin | Via Georgia Tech News Center | August 9, 2011The University System of Georgia Board of Regents today appointed three Georgia Tech faculty members as Regents’ Professors and two as Regents’ Researchers. Georgia Tech professor Seth Marder is part of the team that developed a new photonic material that could facilitate all-optical signal processing. The three new Regents’ Professors at Georgia Tech are Mark […]
On-Q-ity Founder and Genzyme Vet, Mara Aspinall, Moves to Roche’s Ventana Medical
Mara Aspinall | Via Xconomy | August 2, 2011Mara Aspinall, the founder and former CEO of Waltham, MA-based On-Q-ity, has moved on to become president of Ventana Medical Systems, an Arizona-based division of healthcare giant Roche that focuses on cancer diagnostics. The appointment was announced in a press release today and is effective next month. Aspinall is well known in the diagnostics world, […]