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.
Computer Helps ‘Locked-In’ ALS Patients Communicate, Shop Online
Douglas Weber | Via HealthDay News | March 30, 2022A handful of “locked-in” amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients can now work a laptop computer using their brain waves, thanks to an implant lodged in a major vein inside their skull. The implant — a stent lined with 16 miniscule electrodes — is nestled in a vein located near the motor cortex of completely paralyzed […]
Sticky Nanoparticles Fight Skin Cancer
Mark Saltzman | Via Yale University | March 30, 2022The holy grail of dermatology, says Michael Girardi, MD, FAAD, Professor of Dermatology, is a simple nonsurgical treatment for skin cancers. Dr. Girardi’s quest may soon be over. He and his collaborator, W. Mark Saltzman, PhD, Goizueta Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology and of Chemical Engineering, have the […]
Injectable electrodes could prevent deadly heart arrhythmias
Elizabeth Cosgriff-Hernandez | Via AAAS | March 25, 2022Heart attacks and strokes triggered by electrical misfiring in the heart are among the biggest killers on the planet. Now, researchers have created a “liquid wire” that, when injected into pig hearts, can guide the organs to a normal rhythm. The results, presented here this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, are […]
Human Factors Drive Radiology Error Rates
Elizabeth Krupinski | Via RSNA | March 25, 2022In 1949, radiologist Leo Henry Garland, MD, former RSNA president, published his first of several articles on errors in radiology. Among his findings, Dr. Garland discovered that experienced radiologists would miss important findings in approximately 30% of chest radiographs positive for radiologic evidence of disease. The ensuing decades saw the development of contrast agents, the […]
This Algorithm Designs Proteins From Scratch to Accelerate Drug Discovery
David Baker | Via Singularity Hub | March 24, 2022The proteins that control our lives are like rolling tumbleweeds. Each has a tangled, unique shape, with spiky side-branches dotting its surface. Hidden in the nooks and crannies are the locks to battle our most notorious foes—cancer, diabetes, infections, or even aging—if we can find the right key. We just got a universal key maker. […]
In animal study, implant churns out CAR-T cells to combat cancer
Frances Ligler | Via Science Daily | March 24, 2022Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed an implantable biotechnology that produces and releases CAR-T cells for attacking cancerous tumors. In a proof-of-concept study involving lymphoma in mice, the researchers found that treatment with the implants was faster and more effective than conventional CAR-T cell […]
New method of pancreatic islet cryopreservation marks breakthrough for diabetes cure
John Bischof | Via Science Daily | March 23, 2022Engineering and medical researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Mayo Clinic have developed a new process for successfully storing specialized pancreatic islet cells at very low temperatures and rewarming them, enabling the potential for on-demand islet transplantation. The breakthrough discovery in cryopreservation is a major step forward in a cure for diabetes. […]
Nanoparticle-Based COVID-19 Vaccine Could Target Future Infectious Diseases
Chad Mirkin | Via Northwestern University | March 23, 2022Just one dose of a new nanoparticle-based COVID-19 vaccine was enough to produce an immune response in animals on track with vaccines currently in clinical use. And with minor changes, Northwestern University investigators hope the same vaccine platform could target other infectious diseases. In a new study, published in PNAS, 100 percent of mice who […]
America’s Top Kidney Professionals Receive Excellence Medals
Shuvo Roy | Via Cision US | March 22, 2022The American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP), America’s oldest and largest independent kidney patient advocacy organization, announced the recipients of its 2022 Medal of Excellence today. The awards, presented by kidney patient consumers, is one of the nation’s highest honors for kidney healthcare professionals and elevates local, national, and international figures who have been at […]
Sequencing of drug combinations could amplify the anti-tumor immune response in liver cancer
Dan Duda | Via Mass General Hospital | March 15, 2022A new therapeutic strategy for hepatocellular cancer (HCC) that initially primes the tumor with an immune checkpoint inhibitor before using a multikinase inhibitor drug showed great promise for treating patients with the deadly disease, a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) study found. In a paper published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers reported that […]
Mammography can offer clues to a woman’s heart health
Sabee Molloi | Via Kaiser Permanente | March 15, 2022Screening mammography is used to look for early indicators of breast cancer. But a new collaborative study between Kaiser Permanente and University of California, Irvine (UCI) shows mammograms can also help determine a woman’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke or developing cardiovascular disease. “Our findings add to the body of evidence that […]
Chad Mirkin wins UNESCO international prize for life sciences
Chad Mirkin | Via International Institute for Nanotechnology | March 14, 2022The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has named Northwestern University’s Chad A. Mirkin as a winner of the 2022 UNESCO-Equatorial Guinea International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences. Mirkin is only the second American to win this international prize, which recognizes individuals who have made significant efforts through scientific research towards […]
Study: Sound can stimulate blind retina to transmit signals to the brain
Qifa Zhou | Via Ophthalmology Times | March 11, 2022Retinal degenerative diseases that are caused by progressive degeneration of the light-sensitive photoreceptors in the retina reman among the major causes of vision loss and blindness, affecting tens of millions of people worldwide. Although the rods and cones which are the light-sensitive cells of the retina have completely degenerated, the neural circuitries connected to the […]
Study: Sound can stimulate blind retina to transmit signals to the brain
Mark Humayun | Via Ophthalmology Times | March 11, 2022Retinal degenerative diseases that are caused by progressive degeneration of the light-sensitive photoreceptors in the retina reman among the major causes of vision loss and blindness, affecting tens of millions of people worldwide. Although the rods and cones which are the light-sensitive cells of the retina have completely degenerated, the neural circuitries connected to the […]
New spherical nucleic acid ‘drug’ kills tumor cells in humans with glioblastoma
Chad Mirkin | Via International Institute for Nanotechnology | March 10, 2022An early clinical trial in individuals with the deadly brain cancer, glioblastoma, showed an experimental spherical nucleic acid (SNA) drug developed by Northwestern University scientists was able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and trigger the death of tumor cells. This is the first time a nanotherapeutic has been shown to cross the blood-brain barrier when […]
Remembering Michael Buschmann
Michael Buschmann | Via George Mason University | March 7, 2022George Mason University’s Michael Buschmann is being remembered by friends and colleagues as a brilliant mind and translational researcher with a gentle spirit and a burning love for jazz. Buschmann, who died at his home last week, had been an Eminent Scholar and the chair of the Bioengineering Department within Mason’s College of Engineering and […]
Nanotechnology helps soybean growers and the environment
Cristina Sabliov | Via Phys.org | March 4, 2022Louisiana farmers rely on herbicides, pesticides and fungicides to protect their crops against weeds, insects and diseases. Even though most farmers try to be good stewards of the environment, some of those chemicals inevitably end up in waterways, or elsewhere, instead of benefiting the plants. To address this problem, LSU Professor Cristina Sabliov is working […]
Disentangling interactions across brain areas
Byron Yu | Via Carnegie Mellon University | March 2, 2022Exploring how brain areas communicate with each other is the focus of a long-standing research collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Champalimaud Research. The cross-continental team is simultaneously recording populations of neurons across multiple brain areas in the visual system and utilizing novel statistical methods to observe neural activity patterns […]
AI and machine learning could improve cancer diagnosis through biomarker discovery
Debiao Li | Via News-Medical.Net | March 1, 2022Artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning (DL), and machine learning (ML) have transformed many industries and areas of science. Now, these tools are being applied to address the challenges of cancer biomarker discovery, where the analysis of vast amounts of imaging and molecular data is beyond the ability of traditional statistical analyses and tools. In a […]