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.
High-speed camera captures signals traveling through nerve cells.
Lihong Wang | Via Caltech | October 6, 2022Reach out right now and touch anything around you. Whether it was a key on your keyboard, the wood of your desk, or the fur of your dog, you felt it the instant your finger contacted it. Or did you? In actuality, it does take a bit of time for your brain to register the […]
Novel Gene Editing Platform to Correct Multi-organ Cystic Fibrosis
Mark Saltzman | Via Yale University | October 5, 2022An interdisciplinary team of Yale researchers has developed a novel gene editing platform that has the potential to correct cystic fibrosis (CF), a potentially debilitating and deadly disease. Cystic fibrosis is caused by a mutation in a gene called the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR). It is often thought of as a lung disease […]
Tissue chip developments: what’s the 411?
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic | Via News Wise | October 4, 2022Tissue chips—tiny mimics of human organs, just millimeters in size—represent an alternative to animal models as a way to study disease or evaluate drugs. However, a major limitation of tissue chips is that they do not faithfully imitate tissue interactions, so it’s impossible to know how a treatment for liver disease, for example, might affect […]
Gene Loss Enhances Metastasis and Cancer Progression
Shana Kelley | Via Northwestern University | September 29, 2022Investigators have discovered that the loss of the gene SLIT2 in circulating tumor cells regulates metastasis of prostate cancer tumors, according to a Northwestern Medicine study published in Science Advances. Metastasis accounts for most cancer-related deaths, yet its underlying mechanisms have remained poorly understood despite recent advances in cancer treatments and care… Continue reading.
Breaking through the mucus barrier
Robert Langer | Via MIT | September 28, 2022A capsule that tunnels through mucus in the GI tract could be used to orally administer large protein drugs such as insulin. One reason that it’s so difficult to deliver large protein drugs orally is that these drugs can’t pass through the mucus barrier that lines the digestive tract. This means that insulin and most […]
Growing Human Kidneys in a Lab – Scientists Have Made a Significant Breakthrough
Joseph Bonventre | Via Scitech Daily | September 26, 2022One in nine adults worldwide has some kind of kidney disease, and kidney failure is becoming more common everywhere. Growing functional kidney tissue in a lab could accelerate kidney disease treatments and restore kidney function. In humans, the kidney forms naturally as a consequence of two building blocks: metanephric mesenchyme and ureteric bud. Seven years […]
Researchers design treatment to protect bones during cancer therapy
Sudipta Seal | Via Phys.org | September 26, 2022University of Central Florida material sciences engineers Melanie Coathup and Sudipta Seal have designed a cerium oxide nanoparticle—an artificial enzyme—that protects bones against damage from radiation. The nanoparticle has also shown abilities to improve bone regeneration, reduce loss of blood cells and help kill cancer cells. Their study, a collaboration with Oakland University, North Carolina […]
Microscopic Robots in the Lungs Treat Bacterial Pneumonia in Mice
Liangfang Zhang | Via Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News | September 23, 2022The last decade has brought a lot of attention to the use of microscopic robots (microrobots or nanorobots) for biomedical applications. Now, nanoengineers have developed microrobots that can swim around in the lungs and deliver medication to be used to treat bacterial pneumonia. A new study shows that the microrobots safely eliminated pneumonia-causing bacteria in […]
Gang Han and colleagues develop superfluorescence, light-emitting, nanocrystal alternative to lasers
Gang Han | Via UMass Chan Medical School | September 22, 2022Research may lead to a high-quality, nanosized, clean light source for biomedical applications and beyond Researchers at UMass Chan Medical School and North Carolina State University have developed a superfluorescence crystal nanoparticle that uses near-infrared light, a wave-length of light beyond what humans can see, to safely produce laser-quality light at room temperature. This discovery, […]
Shutting down backup genes leads to cancer remission in mice
Xiongbin Lu | Via University of Michigan | September 21, 2022Cancer cells delete DNA when they go to the dark side, so a team of doctors and engineers targeted the ‘backup plans’ running critical cell functions The way that tumor cells enable their uncontrolled growth is also a weakness that can be harnessed to treat cancer, researchers at the University of Michigan and Indiana University […]
Student success, collaborations highlight Wodicka’s legacy at Purdue
George Wodicka | Via Purdue University | September 21, 2022Culture of innovation helped distinguish biomedical engineering program Simply saying George Wodicka is a big thinker would undersell what he accomplished in two-plus decades leading Purdue’s biomedical engineering program. His thinking has been bigger than big, transforming a small research center into the renowned Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, whose work impacts millions of patients […]
Northwestern Receives $16 Million Grant to Support Faculty Recruitment and Equity
Eric Perreault | Via Northwestern University | September 20, 2022The grant will fund hiring of 15 new tenure-track faculty and emphasize DEI values A transformative grant awarded to Northwestern totaling $16 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aims to disrupt systemic barriers that impede the full participation of underrepresented groups by funding the cluster hiring of new faculty in […]
Laser light offers new tool for treating bone cancer
Lihong Wang | Via CalTech | September 19, 2022Label-free intraoperative histology of bone tissue via deep-learning-assisted ultraviolet photoacoustic microscopyOf the many ways to treat cancer, the oldest, and maybe most tried and true, is surgery. Even with the advent of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and more experimental treatments like bacteria that seek and destroy cancer cells, cancers, very often, simply need to be cut […]
Painless, Bloodless Tattoos Possible With New Microneedle Technique
Mark Prausnitz | Via Everyday Health | September 19, 2022Tattoos may seem like they’re everywhere, and no longer taboo. But widespread medical use of tattoos has been limited because of the need for repeated needle injections that can be painful and carry risks of bleeding and infection. Now scientists have developed a way to avoid these deterrents: a tattoo patch containing microscopic needles that […]
Expert in Engineered Cell-Based Cancer Therapies Appointed USC Viterbi BME Chair
Peter Wang | Via University of Southern California | September 16, 2022Peter Yingxiao Wang, a specialist in CAR T-cell cancer therapies, joins USC in January 2023 as the new chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Research leader in the field of precision medicine, Professor Peter Yingxiao Wang, will join the USC Viterbi School of Engineering on January 1, 2023, as the new chair of the […]
Researchers Use Genetic Sequencing and Wastewater Analysis to Detect SARS-CoV-2 Variants and Monkeypox within Communities
Rob Knight | Via Dark Daily | September 12, 2022Researchers surprised that process designed to detect SARS-CoV-2 also identifies monkeypox in wastewater Early information about an outbreak in a geographical region can inform local clinical laboratories as to which infectious agents and variants they are likely to see when testing patients who have symptoms. To that end, wastewater testing has become a rich source […]
Leading Tissue Regeneration Expert to Chair UVA’s Department of Biomedical Engineering
Shayn Peirce-Cottler | Via UVA Health | September 9, 2022Shayn Peirce-Cottler, PhD, an international leader in biomedical engineering and a University of Virginia faculty member since 2004, has been named chair of UVA’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. She succeeds Frederick H. Epstein, PhD, who has served as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering – a joint program of UVA’s School of Medicine and […]
Analyzing the potential of AlphaFold in drug discovery
James Collins | Via MIT | September 6, 2022Study finds computer models that predict molecular interactions need improvement before they can help identify drug mechanisms of action. Over the past few decades, very few new antibiotics have been developed, largely because current methods for screening potential drugs are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. One promising new strategy is to use computational models, which offer […]
New Experimental Drug Protects Against Sudden Death
Samuel Wickline | Via SciTechDaily | September 5, 2022The drug could pave the way for treatments for those who are at risk of sudden rupture due to abdominal aortic aneurysms. A study conducted by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that an experimental drug therapy protects mice against sudden death brought on by the rupture of a major […]