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.
Early into the pandemic, Konstantina Stankovic, MD, PhD, an inner ear researcher, and otolaryngologist, was surprised when she began seeing patients exposed to COVID-19 in her Massachusetts clinic complaining of hearing loss, ringing in the ears known as tinnitus, and dizziness, which often starts in the inner ear. Sure, everyone had heard about other odd […]
Most human diseases can be traced to malfunctioning parts of a cell — a tumor is able to grow because a gene wasn’t accurately translated into a particular protein or a metabolic disease arises because mitochondria aren’t firing properly, for example. But to understand what parts of a cell can go wrong in a disease, […]
Life-threatening bacteria are becoming ever more resistant to antibiotics, making the search for alternatives to antibiotics an increasingly urgent challenge. For certain applications, one alternative may be a special type of laser. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that lasers that emit ultrashort pulses of light can kill multidrug-resistant […]
ECE professor Wolfgang Fink and assistant professor of architecture Jonathan Bean are finalists in the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Envelope Retrofit Opportunities for Building Optimization Technologies Prize,” or E-ROBOT Prize. Fink and Bean created wall-EIFS, a robot that can retrofit buildings by installing insulation, thus cutting down carbon emissions. The researchers recently discussed their research […]
Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have used glowing chemicals and other techniques to create a 3D map of the blood vessels and self-renewing “stem” cells that line and penetrate a mouse skull. The map provides precise locations of blood vessels and stem cells that scientists could eventually use to repair wounds and generate new bone and […]
Instead of surgically removing a sample of skin, sending it to a lab and waiting several days for results, your dermatologist takes pictures of a suspicious-looking lesion and quickly produces a detailed, microscopic image of the skin. This could become routine in clinics, the result of a new “virtual histology” technology being developed by researchers […]
The insidiousness of pancreatic cancer is how it develops without showing any definitive symptoms. In most cases, by the time it is diagnosed, it is beyond cure. And yet, for 10 to 20 percent of patients, pancreatic cancer is caught soon enough, before it has metastasized. This provides surgeons a narrow window of time to […]
University of Texas (UT) Southwestern and University of Washington researchers led an international team that used artificial intelligence (AI) and evolutionary analysis to produce 3D models of eukaryotic protein interactions. The study, published in Science, identified more than 100 probable protein complexes for the first time and provided structural models for more than 700 previously uncharacterized ones. […]
USF President Rhea Law has named College of Engineering Professor Sylvia Wilson Thomas, a pioneering researcher whose national leadership and advocacy is opening the field of engineering to historically underrepresented students, as interim vice president for USF Research & Innovation. In her new duties, Dr. Thomas will lead the division of the university responsible for […]
The chairman of the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Cullen College of Engineering has been elected to lead an international academy of his peers through September 2023. Metin Akay, Ph.D., the founding chairman and the John S. Dunn Endowed Professor of Biomedical Engineering, was elected chairman of the governing council for the International Academy of […]
Vanderbilt biomedical engineering professor has developed a prototype headband to measure brain activity that could have widespread application in studying and ultimately treating ADHD and other neurological disorders. The device is lightweight, portable, and inexpensive to construct. Prototype components cost less than $250, compared to costs exceeding $10,000 for commercial systems. Audrey Bowden, associate professor […]
Stanford researchers have developed a new synthetic molecule, called PIP-CpG, that combines a tumor-targeting agent with a molecule that triggers immune activation. This treatment, can be administered intravenously and can make its way to multiple tumor sites, where it recruits immune cells against cancer. Three doses of this new immunotherapy prolonged the survival of six […]
Northwestern University investigators have developed a new injectable therapy that harnesses “dancing molecules” to reverse paralysis and repair tissue after severe spinal cord injuries. In the new study, published in Science, investigators administered a single injection to tissues surrounding the spinal cords of paralyzed mice. Just four weeks later, the animals regained the ability to […]
The University of Sydney’s Professor Anthony (Tony) Weiss AM is recognised for his pioneering research and commercialisation of synthetic tropoelastin-based biomaterials, which can accelerate and improve the repair of human tissue. For the past two decades, he has pioneered global research into tropoelastin and elastic fibres, which are found in human tissue ranging from the […]
The process of purifying biopharmaceutical drugs remains a costly and time-consuming challenge. A deeper understanding of how unwanted elements within biomanufactured proteins bind to the molecules developed to remove them could help researchers make purity processes more efficient, more complex, and increasingly scalable. In research published in Langmuir, a team led by Steven Cramer, an […]
Copper has been clinically improving the lives of people since about 1500 BCE, when an Egyptian physician first recorded its use as a treatment for inflammation. Some 35 centuries later, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Italy’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart medical school have provided solid evidence that the first metal used medicinally […]
Princess Imoukhuede, a leader in systems biology research, engineering education, and academic diversity initiatives, has been named the new chair of the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle. The department is located in both the UW College of Engineering and the UW School of Medicine. Her appointment is effective Jan. 1, […]
Northwestern investigators have identified a novel approach to control the hierarchical assembly of protein pathways with DNA, according to a study published the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The approach may facilitate the construction of synthetic protein materials, which can be used for a variety of medical and scientific purposes. “Hierarchical assembly methods […]
Two University of Arizona professors just won $200,000 for an invention to help cut down on carbon emissions. Jonathan Bean, assistant professor of architecture, and Wolfgang Fink, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, worked together to create a robot that can address the climate crisis by helping to improve the energy performance of existing […]
Researchers at MIT and Harvard University have designed a way to selectively turn on gene therapies in target cells, including human cells. Their technology can detect specific messenger RNA sequences in cells, and that detection then triggers production of a specific protein from a transgene, or artificial gene. Because transgenes can have negative and even […]