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.
Science Study Shows ‘Promiscuous’ Enzymes Still Prevalent in Metabolism
Bernhard Palsson | Via UC San Diego News Center | August 30, 2012Open an undergraduate biochemistry textbook and you will learn that enzymes are highly efficient and specific in catalyzing chemical reactions in living organisms, and that they evolved to this state from their “sloppy” and “promiscuous” ancestors to allow cells to grow more efficiently. This fundamental paradigm is being challenged in a new study by bioengineers […]
National Science Foundation Grant Will Benefit Students and Mobility-impaired Individuals
Joel Bumgardner | Via University of Memphis | August 28, 2012A grant to Dr. Joel Bumgardner, professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Memphis, will not only help educate students in a number of fields, but will ultimately be of benefit to persons who are mobility-impaired. The $111,490 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will partially fund undergraduate student design projects that aim […]
Carnegie Mellon’s Philip LeDuc Named Fellow of Prestigious Biomedical Engineering Society
Philip LeDuc | Via Carnegie Mellon University | August 28, 2012Carnegie Mellon University’s Philip LeDuc has been named a fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) for his exceptional achievements and experience in the field, including cell and molecular biomechanics. “This is a wonderful honor for me to be recognized by my peers as I work to improve the lives of people worldwide and to […]
Sensing Cyborg Tissues Now Feasible
Daniel Kohane | Via Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | August 27, 2012Scientists have developed a technique for constructing silicon nanowire tissue scaffolds that contain nanoscale electrodes capable of monitoring intra- and extracellular function within living biological tissues grown through them. The porous three-dimensional (3D) biocompatible scaffolds can be generated as a mesh or planar construct and manipulated into just about any shape required before seeding with […]
First Ever Artificial ‘Cyborg’ Tissue Developed
Daniel Kohane | Via Business Standard | August 27, 2012The team led by Charles M Lieber, professor of chemistry at Harvard and Daniel Kohane, professor of anaesthesia at the Harvard Medical School, developed a system for creating nano-scale “scaffolds”, which could be seeded with cells that later grew into ‘cyborg’ tissue. “With this technology, for the first time, we can work at the same […]
Medicine’s James Anderson Selected as One of Five Distinguished University Professors
James Anderson | Via CWRU The Daily | August 27, 2012Often, collaboration helps turn a great idea into a life-changing invention, or a minor project into a major breakthrough. But for James M. Anderson, collaboration is what’s defined his career. As a professor of pathology, macromolecular science and biomedical engineering, Anderson’s 44 years at Case Western Reserve have included research, teaching and service that bridges […]
Carnegie Mellon University Biomedical Engineers Lead Collaborative Team Developing New Astro Surgery Tools for NASA Deep Space Missions
James Antaki | Via Carnegie Mellon University | August 27, 2012Move over “Bones” McCoy. Future voyages of the starship Enterprise just might include astro surgery as this dynamic discipline jumps from the pages of fiction to reality. A team of biomedical engineering researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Louisville are developing surgical tools that could be used for future expeditionary spaceflights to […]
Merging Tissue and Electronics
Robert Langer | Via Massachusetts Institute of Technology | August 26, 2012New tissue scaffold could be used for drug development and implantable therapeutic devices. To control the three-dimensional shape of engineered tissue, researchers grow cells on tiny, sponge-like scaffolds. These devices can be implanted into patients or used in the lab to study tissue responses to potential drugs. A team of researchers from MIT, Harvard University […]
Merging the Biological, Electronic: Researchers Grow Cyborg Tissues with Embedded Nanoelectronics
Daniel Kohane | Via Harvard Gazette | August 26, 2012Harvard scientists have created a type of “cyborg” tissue for the first time by embedding a three-dimensional network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues. As described in a paper published Aug. 26 in the journal Nature Materials, a research team led by Charles M. Lieber, the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry […]
Merging Tissue and Electronics
Daniel Kohane | Via MIT News | August 26, 2012New tissue scaffold could be used for drug development and implantable therapeutic devices. To control the three-dimensional shape of engineered tissue, researchers grow cells on tiny, sponge-like scaffolds. These devices can be implanted into patients or used in the lab to study tissue responses to potential drugs. A team of researchers from MIT, Harvard University […]
University of Minnesota Engineering Researchers Discover New Non-Invasive Method for Diagnosing Epilepsy
Bin He | Via University of Minnesota | August 24, 2012A team of University of Minnesota biomedical engineers and researchers from Mayo Clinic published a groundbreaking study today that outlines how a new type of non-invasive brain scan taken immediately after a seizure gives additional insight into possible causes and treatments for epilepsy patients. The new findings could specifically benefit millions of people who are […]
TERMIS Names Tissue Engineer Mikos a Founding Fellow
Antonios Mikos | Via Rice University News | August 23, 2012Bioengineering’s Antonios Mikos has been elected a founding fellow of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). The honor credits Mikos’ decades of research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, service to education within the field and contributions to TERMIS and the journal Tissue Engineering. He will be presented with the award during an evening […]
Harvard Geneticist Stores 70 Billion Copies of his Book in DNA
George M. Church | Via Gizmag | August 23, 2012George Church is a professor of genetics at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and also co-author of the book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves in DNA. With a title like that, it’s only fitting that the book was used to break the record that it recently did – […]
The First Book To Be Encoded in DNA
George M. Church | Via Time Newsfeed | August 20, 2012Two Harvard scientists have produced 70 billion copies of a book in DNA code –and it’s smaller than the size of your thumbnail. Despite the fact there are 70 billion copies of it in existence, very few people have actually read the book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves in DNA, by […]
Matthew DeLisa: Entrepreneur Turns Bacterial Daydream into Successful Start-Up
Matthew P. DeLisa | Via American Chemical Society C&EN | August 20, 2012Back in his days as a Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland, College Park, Matthew P. DeLisa began daydreaming about engineering bacteria to make humanlike glycoproteins that could in turn find use as innovative drugs. It wasn’t until a decade later, however—as DeLisa joined the faculty of Cornell University’s School of Chemical & Biomolecular […]
Books and JavaScript Stored in DNA Molecules
George M. Church | Via New Scientist | August 16, 2012Forget flash – the computers of the future might store data in DNA. George Church of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and colleagues have encoded a 53,400-word book, 11 JPG images and a JavaScript program – amounting to 5.27 million bits of data in total – into sequences of DNA. In doing so, they […]
Writing the Book in DNA
George M. Church | Via Wyss Institute at Harvard | August 16, 2012Although George Church’s next book doesn’t hit the shelves until Oct. 2, it has already passed an enviable benchmark: 70 billion copies — roughly triple the sum of the top 100 books of all time. And they fit on your thumbnail. That’s because Church, a founding core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically […]
Mark Redfern Named Pitt’s New Vice Provost for Research
Mark Redfern | Via University of Pittsburgh | August 14, 2012Mark Redfern, the William Kepler Whiteford Professor and associate dean for research in the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, will become the University’s new vice provost for research, effective Sept. 1, 2012, Pitt Provost Patricia E. Beeson has announced. Redfern, who holds Pitt secondary appointments in otolaryngology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, physical therapy, […]
Hybrid Medical Imaging Technology May Shed New Light on Cancer
Qifa Zhou | Via University of Southern California News | August 13, 2012Scientists from USC and Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new type of medical imaging that gives doctors a fresh look at live internal organs. The technology combines two existing forms of medical imaging — photoacoustic and ultrasound — and uses them to generate a high-contrast, high-resolution combined image that could help doctors […]
“Theranostic’ Imaging Offers Means of Killing Prostate Cancer Cells Without Harming Other Healthy Cells
Zaver Bhujwalla | Via Johns Hopkins Medicine | August 8, 2012Experimenting with human prostate cancer cells and mice, cancer imaging experts at Johns Hopkins say they have developed a method for finding and killing malignant cells while sparing healthy ones. The method, called theranostic imaging, targets and tracks potent drug therapies directly and only to cancer cells. It relies on binding an originally inactive form […]