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.
New Western innovation gels engineering with medicine
Kibret Mequanint | Via Western University | May 20, 2022Game-changing ‘bio-glue’ could mean end to surgical sutures, staples Western biomaterials expert Kibret Mequanint – in partnership with Malcolm Xing from University of Manitoba – has developed the first-ever hydrophobic (water-hating) fluid, which displaces body fluids surrounding an injury allowing for near-instantaneous gelling, sealing and healing of injured tissue. “Tissue adhesives that can perform in […]
Ameer Wins 2022 Bioactive Materials Lifetime Achievement Award
Guillermo Ameer | Via Northwestern University | May 16, 2022Northwestern Engineering’s Guillermo A. Ameer has been named the 2022 Bioactive Materials Lifetime Achievement Award winner by the Bioactive Materials academic journal. Established in 2021, the annual Bioactive Materials Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes excellence in research and development in the field of bioactive materials. The award is presented to a person judged to have demonstrated […]
How the Brain Tells Apart Important and Unimportant Sensations
Lee E. Miller | Via Scientific American | May 16, 2022Imagine you are playing the guitar. You’re seated, supporting the instrument’s weight across your lap. One hand strums; the other presses strings against the guitar’s neck to play chords. Your vision tracks sheet music on a page, and your hearing lets you listen to the sound. In addition, two other senses make playing this instrument […]
Study estimates effectiveness of 2-dose and 3-dose mRNA vaccination against Omicron
Delphine Dean | Via News-Medical.Net | May 12, 2022In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers estimated the efficacy of two-dose and three-dose regimens of two messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccines: Moderna’s mRNA-1273 and Pfizer-BioNTech’s BNT162b2 against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant. Omicron (B.1.1529) has demonstrated higher infectivity […]
Breakthrough tech enables seizure localization in minutes
Bin He | Via Carnegie Mellon University | May 11, 2022Fresh techniques to aid seizure diagnosis and surgical planning stand to benefit millions of epilepsy patients, but the path to progress has been slow and challenging. New research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Bin He and his team, in partnership with UPMC and Harvard Medical School, introduces a novel network analysis technology that uses minimally invasive […]
Expanding the Oval and Opening Doors: The Inauguration of Olin President Gilda Barabino
Gilda Barabino | Via Olin College | May 9, 2022On May 5, 2022, Olin College celebrated a milestone event two years in the making—the long-awaited and much celebrated inauguration of its second president and first Black woman president, Dr. Gilda A. Barabino. Joined by delegates, trustees, students, staff, faculty, alumni, parents and guests from far and wide, the Olin Community gathered on a perfect […]
New Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Education
Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert | Via UW Medicine | May 6, 2022On July 1, Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, PhD, will join UW Medicine as the new vice dean for Research and Graduate Education. She succeeds John Slattery, PhD, who is retiring after holding the position since 2005. Her husband, Don Elbert, PhD, will also join UW Medicine as an associate professor in the Department of Neurology. “I am […]
Alyssa Panitch Chosen as Chair of Coulter BME
Alyssa Panitch | Via Georgia Tech | May 3, 2022Alyssa Panitch, Edward Teller Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, has been selected as the new chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. Panitch currently serves as executive associate dean of academic personnel and planning in the College of […]
Repairing Tendons with Silk Proteins
Ali Khademhosseini | Via Terasaki Institute | May 3, 2022Just mentioning a ruptured Achilles tendon would make anyone wince. Tendon injuries are well known for their lengthy, difficult and often incomplete healing processes. Sudden or repetitive motion, experienced by athletes and factory workers, for example, increases the risk of tears or ruptures in the tendons; thirty percent of all people will have a tendon […]
Marijuana linked to heart disease; supplement may mitigate risk, researchers report
Joseph Wu | Via Stanford Medicine | April 29, 2022People who use marijuana have an increased risk of heart disease and heart attack, according to a large study led by researchers at Stanford Medicine. The study also showed that the psychoactive component of the drug, known as THC, causes inflammation in endothelial cells that line the interior of blood vessels, as well as atherosclerosis […]
Sweat Sensor Makes Big Strides in Detecting Infection Indicators
Shalini Prasad | Via University of Texas at Dallas | April 29, 2022University of Texas at Dallas bioengineers in collaboration with EnLiSense LLC have designed a wearable sensor that can detect two key biomarkers of infection in human sweat, a significant step toward making it possible for users to receive early warnings of infections such as COVID-19 and influenza. The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer […]
Seven UChicago scholars elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022
Raphael Lee | Via University of Chicago | April 29, 2022Seven members of the University of Chicago faculty have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. They include Profs. Christopher R. Berry, Raphael C. Lee, Peter B. Littlewood, Richard Neer, Sianne Ngai and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, and Prof. Emerita Wadad Kadi. These scholars […]
Plug-and-play organ-on-a-chip can be customized to the patient
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic | Via Science Daily | April 27, 2022Engineered tissues have become a critical component for modeling diseases and testing the efficacy and safety of drugs in a human context. A major challenge for researchers has been how to model body functions and systemic diseases with multiple engineered tissues that can physiologically communicate — just like they do in the body. However, it […]
Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste
Hal Alper | Via University of Texas at Austin | April 27, 2022An enzyme variant created by engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin can break down environment-throttling plastics that typically take centuries to degrade in just a matter of hours to days. This discovery, published today in Nature, could help solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental problems: what to do with […]
Can a blood test help diagnose skin cancer?
Sunitha Nagrath | Via EurekAlert | April 20, 2022New research in Advanced NanoBiomed Research indicates that testing an individual’s blood can reveal the presence of circulating melanoma cells. Such tests may allow patients to forego invasive skin biopsies to determine whether they have skin cancer. The test uses what’s called the Melanoma-specific OncoBean platform conjugated with melanoma-specific antibodies. Investigators at the University of […]
Flexible Printable Electrical Patches for Accelerated Wound Healing
Ali Khademhosseini | Via Terasaki Institute | April 19, 2022There are myriad ways in which people can experience physical wounds – from minor scrapes and abrasions to the effects of surgery, critical injuries, burns and other major traumas. The healing process for these wounds can also vary among individuals and may be adversely affected by underlying health conditions such as vascular insufficiencies, diabetes, obesity […]
Tumors partially destroyed with sound don’t come back
Zhen Xu | Via University of Michigan | April 18, 2022Noninvasive sound technology developed at the University of Michigan breaks down liver tumors in rats, kills cancer cells and spurs the immune system to prevent further spread—an advance that could lead to improved cancer outcomes in humans. By destroying only 50% to 75% of liver tumor volume, the rats’ immune systems were able to clear […]
Rensselaer Professor Jonathan Dordick and Collaborators Work To Develop Nasal Spray To Combat COVID-19 and Other Respiratory Infections
Jonathan Dordick | Via Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | April 12, 2022Rensselaer Professor Jonathan Dordick and collaborators from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medical College have been awarded $500,000 from the New York State Biodefense Commercialization Fund to engage in research for the development of a Pentosan Polysulfate (PPS)-based nasal spray to block COVID-19. “Despite advances in both therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19, there remains a […]
Engineered bacteria could help protect “good” gut microbes from antibiotics
James Collins | Via MIT | April 11, 2022Antibiotics are life-saving drugs, but they can also harm the beneficial microbes that live in the human gut. Following antibiotic treatment, some patients are at risk of developing inflammation or opportunistic infections such as Clostridiodes difficile. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics on gut microbes can also contribute to the spread of resistance to the drugs. In […]