Biomedical engineering and the whitaker foundation: a thirty-year partnership.

PubMed

Katona, Peter G

2006-06-01

The Whitaker Foundation, established in 1976, will close in 2006. It will have made awards totaling 805 million US dollars, with over 710 million US dollars in biomedical engineering. Close to 1,500 faculty members received research grants to help them establish academic careers in biomedical engineering, and over 400 graduate students received fellowship support. The Foundation also supported the enhancement or establishment of educational programs in biomedical engineering, especially encouraging the formation of departments. The number of biomedical engineering departments almost tripled during the past 10 years, now numbering close to 75. Leveraging of grants enabled the construction of 13 new buildings. With the field firmly established, the grant program supporting new faculty members will be the one missed the most. New opportunities, however, are emerging as interdisciplinary research is being embraced by both public and private funding sources. The life sciences will be increasingly incorporated into all areas of engineering, and it is expected that such "biofication" will pose both opportunities and challenges to biomedical engineering.

Expose Mechanical Engineering Students to Biomechanics Topics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shen, Hui

2011-01-01

To adapt the focus of engineering education to emerging new industries and technologies nationwide and in the local area, a biomechanics module has been developed and incorporated into a mechanical engineering technical elective course to expose mechanical engineering students at ONU (Ohio Northern University) to the biomedical engineering topics.…

A Ten-Year Assessment of a Biomedical Engineering Summer Research Internship within a Comprehensive Cancer Center

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wright, A. S.; Wu, X.; Frye, C. A.; Mathur, A. B.; Patrick, C. W., Jr.

2007-01-01

A Biomedical Engineering Internship Program conducted within a Comprehensive Cancer Center over a 10 year period was assessed and evaluated. Although this is a non-traditional location for an internship, it is an ideal site for a multidisciplinary training program for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. We made a…

Women in biomedical engineering and health informatics.

PubMed

McGregor, Carolyn; Frize, Monique

2008-01-01

A valuable session for anyone whether student or not, interested in learning more about Biomedical Engineering and Health Informatics as a career choice for women. Prominent women within the domains Biomedical Engineering and Health Informatics will present their research and their humanitarian interests that motivate them. Utilise the fantastic networking opportunity that will conclude this session to build and establish new professional networks with other women interested in your fields of expertise. Bring your contact details and be ready to make new contacts that are relevant for you.

Design and integration of a problem-based biofabrication course into an undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum.

PubMed

Raman, Ritu; Mitchell, Marlon; Perez-Pinera, Pablo; Bashir, Rashid; DeStefano, Lizanne

2016-01-01

The rapidly evolving discipline of biological and biomedical engineering requires adaptive instructional approaches that teach students to target and solve multi-pronged and ill-structured problems at the cutting edge of scientific research. Here we present a modular approach to designing a lab-based course in the emerging field of biofabrication and biological design, leading to a final capstone design project that requires students to formulate and test a hypothesis using the scientific method. Students were assessed on a range of metrics designed to evaluate the format of the course, the efficacy of the format for teaching new topics and concepts, and the depth of the contribution this course made to students training for biological engineering careers. The evaluation showed that the problem-based format of the course was well suited to teaching students how to use the scientific method to investigate and uncover the fundamental biological design rules that govern the field of biofabrication. We show that this approach is an efficient and effective method of translating emergent scientific principles from the lab bench to the classroom and training the next generation of biological and biomedical engineers for careers as researchers and industry practicians.

Demand for interdisciplinary laboratories for physiology research by undergraduate students in biosciences and biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Clase, Kari L; Hein, Patrick W; Pelaez, Nancy J

2008-12-01

Physiology as a discipline is uniquely positioned to engage undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research in response to the 2006-2011 National Science Foundation Strategic Plan call for innovative transformational research, which emphasizes multidisciplinary projects. To prepare undergraduates for careers that cross disciplinary boundaries, students need to practice interdisciplinary communication in academic programs that connect students in diverse disciplines. This report surveys policy documents relevant to this emphasis on interdisciplinary training and suggests a changing role for physiology courses in bioscience and engineering programs. A role for a physiology course is increasingly recommended for engineering programs, but the study of physiology from an engineering perspective might differ from the study of physiology as a basic science. Indeed, physiology laboratory courses provide an arena where biomedical engineering and bioscience students can apply knowledge from both fields while cooperating in multidisciplinary teams under specified technical constraints. Because different problem-solving approaches are used by students of engineering and bioscience, instructional innovations are needed to break down stereotypes between the disciplines and create an educational environment where interdisciplinary teamwork is used to bridge differences.

Biomedical Engineering Education: A Conservative Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Niemi, Eugene E., Jr.

1973-01-01

Describes the demand for graduates from biomedical engineering programs as being not yet fully able to absorb the supply. Suggests small schools interested in entering the field consider offering their programs at the undergraduate level via a minor or an option. Examples of such options and student projects are included. (CC)

Project-based learning with international collaboration for training biomedical engineers.

PubMed

Krishnan, Shankar

2011-01-01

Training biomedical engineers while effectively keeping up with the fast paced scientific breakthroughs and the growth in technical innovations poses arduous challenges for educators. Traditional pedagogical methods are employed for coping with the increasing demands in biomedical engineering (BME) training and continuous improvements have been attempted with some success. Project-based learning (PBL) is an academic effort that challenges students by making them carry out interdisciplinary projects aimed at accomplishing a wide range of student learning outcomes. PBL has been shown to be effective in the medical field and has been adopted by other fields including engineering. The impact of globalization in healthcare appears to be steadily increasing which necessitates the inclusion of awareness of relevant international activities in the curriculum. Numerous difficulties are encountered when the formation of a collaborative team is tried, and additional difficulties occur as the collaboration team is extended to international partners. Understanding and agreement of responsibilities becomes somewhat complex and hence the collaborative project has to be planned and executed with clear understanding by all partners and participants. A model for training BME students by adopting PBL with international collaboration is proposed. The results of previous BME project work with international collaboration fit partially into the model. There were many logistic issues and constraints; however, the collaborative projects themselves greatly enhanced the student learning outcomes. This PBL type of learning experience tends to promote long term retention of multidisciplinary material and foster high-order cognitive activities such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation. In addition to introducing the students to experiences encountered in the real-life workforce, the proposed approach enhances developing professional contracts and global networking. In conclusion, despite initial challenges, adopting project-based learning with international collaboration has strong potentials to be valuable in the training of biomedical engineering students.

A biomedical engineer's library.

PubMed

Webster, J G

1982-01-01

A survey resulted in a list of the 101 textbooks used by 62 biomedical engineering educational programs. A second list shows the textbooks used by each school. A third list shows the 27 textbooks used at two or more schools and the number of times each is used. This selected compilation should be useful to (a) biomedical engineering curriculum committees considering program revision, (b) teachers considering course revision, (c) university and industrial librarians updating their collections, (d) individuals building a personal library, and (e) students desiring information about the emphasis of various educational programs.

Reverse engineering by design: using history to teach.

PubMed

Fagette, Paul

2013-01-01

Engineering students rarely have an opportunity to delve into the historic antecedents of design in their craft, and this is especially true for biomedical devices. The teaching emphasis is always on the new, the innovative, and the future. Even so, over the last decade, I have coupled a research agenda with engineering special projects into a successful format that allows young biomedical engineering students to understand aspects of their history and learn the complexities of design. There is value in having knowledge of historic engineering achievements, not just for an appreciation of these accomplishments but also for understanding exactly how engineers and clinicians of the day executed their feats-in other words, how the design process works. Ultimately, this particular educational odyssey confirms that history and engineering education are not only compatible but mutually supportive.

Project Alexander the Great: a study on the world proliferation of bioengineering/biomedical engineering education.

PubMed

Abu-Faraj, Ziad O

2008-01-01

Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering is considered amongst the most reputable fields within the global arena, and will likely be the primer for any future breakthroughs in Medicine and Biology. Bioengineering/biomedical engineering education has evolved since late 1950s and is undergoing advancement in leading academic institutions worldwide. This paper delineates an original study on the world proliferation of bioengineering/biomedical engineering education and bears the name 'Project Alexander the Great'. The initial step of the project was to survey all 10448 universities, recognized by the International Association of Universities, spread among the 193 member states of the United Nations within the six continents. The project aims at identifying, disseminating, and networking, through the world-wide-web, those institutions of higher learning that provide bioengineering/biomedical engineering education. The significance of this project is multifold: i) the inception of a web-based 'world-map' in bioengineering/biomedical engineering education for the potential international student desiring to pursue a career in this field; ii) the global networking of bioengineering/biomedical engineering academic/research programs; iii) the promotion of first-class bioengineering/biomedical engineering education and the catalysis of global proliferation of this field; iv) the erection of bridges among educational institutions, industry, and professional societies or organizations involved in Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering; and v) the catalysis in the establishment of framework agreements for cooperation among the identified institutions offering curricula in this field. This paper presents the results obtained from Africa and North America. The whole project is due to be completed by 2009.

Design and implementation of a flipped classroom learning environment in the biomedical engineering context.

PubMed

Corrias, Alberto; Cho Hong, James Goh

2015-01-01

The design and implementation of a learning environment that leverages on the use of various technologies is presented. The context is an undergraduate core engineering course within the biomedical engineering curriculum. The topic of the course is data analysis in biomedical engineering problems. One of the key ideas of this study is to confine the most mathematical and statistical aspects of data analysis in prerecorded video lectures. Students are asked to watch the video lectures before coming to class. Since the classroom session does not need to cover the mathematical theory, the time is spent on a selected real world scenario in the field of biomedical engineering that exposes students to an actual application of the theory. The weekly cycle is concluded with a hands-on tutorial session in the computer rooms. A potential problem would arise in such learning environment if the students do not follow the recommendation of watching the video lecture before coming to class. In an attempt to limit these occurrences, two key instruments were put in place: a set of online self-assessment questions that students are asked to take before the classroom session and a simple rewards system during the classroom session. Thanks to modern learning analytics tools, we were able to show that, on average, 57.9% of students followed the recommendation of watching the video lecture before class. The efficacy of the learning environment was assessed through various means. A survey was conducted among the students and the gathered data support the view that the learning environment was well received by the students. Attempts were made to quantify the impacts on learning of the proposed measures by taking into account the results of selected questions of the final examination of the course. Although the presence of confounding factors demands caution in the interpretation, these data seem to indicate a possible positive effect of the use of video lectures in this technologically enhanced learning environment.

See the Math behind the Medicine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saunders, Marnie M.

2010-01-01

To promote math and science, this author designed an activity to show students that biomedical fields are within their reach. The activity has three distinct goals: (1) To introduce the field of biomedical engineering to students and encourage them in these career pursuits; (2) To give them hands-on experience conducting a biomechanical test; and…

An Undergraduate Two-Course Sequence in Biomedical Engineering Design: A Simulation of an Industrial Environment with Group and Individual Project Participation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jendrucko, Richard J.

The first half of a Biomedical Engineering course at Texas A&M University is devoted to group projects that require design planning and a search of the literature. The second half requires each student to individually prepare a research proposal and conduct a research project. (MLH)

Endovascular Device Testing with Particle Image Velocimetry Enhances Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nair, Priya; Ankeny, Casey J.; Ryan, Justin; Okcay, Murat; Frakes, David H.

2016-01-01

We investigated the use of a new system, HemoFlow™, which utilizes state of the art technologies such as particle image velocimetry to test endovascular devices as part of an undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum. Students deployed an endovascular stent into an anatomical model of a cerebral aneurysm and measured intra-aneurysmal flow…

Effects of unique biomedical education programs for engineers: REDEEM and ESTEEM projects.

PubMed

Matsuki, Noriaki; Takeda, Motohiro; Yamano, Masahiro; Imai, Yohsuke; Ishikawa, Takuji; Yamaguchi, Takami

2009-06-01

Current engineering applications in the medical arena are extremely progressive. However, it is rather difficult for medical doctors and engineers to discuss issues because they do not always understand one another's jargon or ways of thinking. Ideally, medical engineers should become acquainted with medicine, and engineers should be able to understand how medical doctors think. Tohoku University in Japan has managed a number of unique reeducation programs for working engineers. Recurrent Education for the Development of Engineering Enhanced Medicine has been offered as a basic learning course since 2004, and Education through Synergetic Training for Engineering Enhanced Medicine has been offered as an advanced learning course since 2006. These programs, which were developed especially for engineers, consist of interactive, modular, and disease-based lectures (case studies) and substantial laboratory work. As a result of taking these courses, all students obtained better objective outcomes, on tests, and subjective outcomes, through student satisfaction. In this article, we report on our unique biomedical education programs for engineers and their effects on working engineers.

How to teach artificial organs.

PubMed

Zapanta, Conrad M; Borovetz, Harvey S; Lysaght, Michael J; Manning, Keefe B

2011-01-01

Artificial organs education is often an overlooked field for many bioengineering and biomedical engineering students. The purpose of this article is to describe three different approaches to teaching artificial organs. This article can serve as a reference for those who wish to offer a similar course at their own institutions or incorporate these ideas into existing courses. Artificial organ classes typically fulfill several ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) criteria, including those specific to bioengineering and biomedical engineering programs.

Collaborative Learning in Engineering Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Newell, Sigrin

1990-01-01

Described is a capstone experience for undergraduate biomedical engineering students in which student teams work with children and adults with cerebral palsy to produce devices that make their lives easier or more enjoyable. The collaborative approach, benefits to the clients, and evaluation of the projects are discussed. (CW)

Empowering biomedical engineering undergraduates to help teach design.

PubMed

Allen, Robert H; Tam, William; Shoukas, Artin A

2004-01-01

We report on our experience empowering upperclassmen and seniors to help teach design courses in biomedical engineering. Initiated in the fall of 1998, these courses are a projects-based set, where teams of students from freshmen level to senior level converge to solve practical problems in biomedical engineering. One goal in these courses is to teach the design process by providing experiences that mimic it. Student teams solve practical projects solicited from faculty, industry and the local community. To hone skills and have a metric for grading, written documentation, posters and oral presentations are required over the two-semester sequence. By requiring a mock design and build exercise in the fall, students appreciate the manufacturing process, the difficulties unforeseen in the design stage and the importance of testing. A Web-based, searchable design repository captures reporting information from each project since its inception. This serves as a resource for future projects, in addition to traditional ones such as library, outside experts and lab facilities. Based on results to date, we conclude that characteristics about our design program help students experience design and learn aspects about teamwork and mentoring useful in their profession or graduate education.

Challenge-based instruction in biomedical engineering: a scalable method to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and learning in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Harris, Thomas R; Brophy, Sean P

2005-09-01

Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, the University of Texas and the Harvard/MIT Health Sciences Technology Program have collaborated since 1999 to develop means to improve bioengineering education. This effort, funded by the National Science Foundation as the VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies, has sought a synthesis of learning science, learning technology, assessment and the domains of bioengineering in order to improve learning by bioengineering students. Research has shown that bioengineering educational materials may be designed to emphasize challenges that engage the student and, when coupled with a learning cycle and appropriate technologies, can lead to improvements in instruction.

Electrophysiology for biomedical engineering students: a practical and theoretical course in animal electrocorticography.

PubMed

Albarracín, Ana L; Farfán, Fernando D; Coletti, Marcos A; Teruya, Pablo Y; Felice, Carmelo J

2016-09-01

The major challenge in laboratory teaching is the application of abstract concepts in simple and direct practical lessons. However, students rarely have the opportunity to participate in a laboratory that combines practical learning with a realistic research experience. In the Biomedical Engineering career, we offer short and optional courses to complement studies for students as they initiate their Graduation Project. The objective of these theoretical and practical courses is to introduce students to the topics of their projects. The present work describes an experience in electrophysiology to teach undergraduate students how to extract cortical information using electrocorticographic techniques. Students actively participate in some parts of the experience and then process and analyze the data obtained with different signal processing tools. In postlaboratory evaluations, students described the course as an exceptional opportunity for students interested in following a postgraduate science program and fully appreciated their contents. Copyright © 2016 The American Physiological Society.

The World Wide Web--a new tool for biomedical engineering education.

PubMed

Blanchard, S M

1997-01-01

An ever-increasing variety of materials (text, images, videos, and sound) are available through the World Wide Web (WWW). While textbooks, which are often outdated by the time they are published, are usually limited to black and white text and images, many supplemental materials can be found on the WWW. The WWW also provides many resources for student projects. In BAE 465: Biomedical Engineering Applications, student teams developed WWW-based term projects on biomedical topics, e.g. biomaterials, MRI, and medical ultrasound. After the projects were completed and edited by the instructor, they were placed on-line for world-wide access if permission for this had been granted by the student authors. Projects from three classes have been used to form the basis for an electronic textbook which is available at http:@www.eos.ncsu.edu/bae/research/blanchard /www/465/textbook/. This electronic textbook also includes instructional objectives and sample tests for specific topic areas. Student projects have been linked to the appropriate topic areas within the electronic textbook. Links to relevant sites have been included within the electronic textbook as well as within the individual projects. Students were required to link to images and other materials they wanted to include in their project in order to avoid copyright issues. The drawback to this approach to copyright protection is that addresses can change making links unavailable. In BAE 465 and in BAE 235: Engineering Biology, the WWW has also been used to distribute instructional objectives, the syllabi and class policies, homework problems, and abbreviated lecture notes. This has made maintaining course-related material easier and has reduced the amount of paper used by both the students and the instructor. Goals for the electronic textbook include the addition of instructional simulation programs that can be run from remote sites. In the future, biomedical engineering may be taught in a virtual classroom with participation by an instructor and students from many different parts of the world.

Problem-Based Learning in Biomechanics: Advantages, Challenges, and Implementation Strategies.

PubMed

Clyne, Alisa Morss; Billiar, Kristen L

2016-07-01

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been shown to be effective in biomedical engineering education, particularly in motivating student learning, increasing knowledge retention, and developing problem solving, communication, and teamwork skills. However, PBL adoption remains limited by real challenges in effective implementation. In this paper, we review the literature on advantages and challenges of PBL and present our own experiences. We also provide practical guidelines for implementing PBL, including two examples of PBL modules from biomechanics courses at two different institutions. Overall, we conclude that the benefits for both professors and students support the use of PBL in biomedical engineering education.

Novel Model-Based Inquiry of Ionic Bonding in Alginate Hydrogels Used in Tissue Engineering for High School Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bowles, Robby D.; Saroka, James M.; Archer, Shivaun D.; Bonassar, Lawrence J.

2012-01-01

Because of cost and time, it is difficult to relate to students how fundamental chemical principles are involved in cutting edge biomedical breakthroughs being reported in the national media. The laboratory exercise presented here is aimed at high school chemistry students and uses alginate hydrogels, a common material used in tissue engineering,…

A Course in Medicine for Engineers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pimmel, Russell; Weed, H. R.

1974-01-01

Describes a course planned for bio-medical engineering students. Intended outcomes of the course include an understanding of medical problems, their courses, diagnosis and treatment, and an awareness of the physician's philosophy and approach. (GS)

Case Study: Use of Problem-Based Learning to Develop Students' Technical and Professional Skills

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warnock, James N.; Mohammadi-Aragh, M. Jean

2016-01-01

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogy that has attracted attention for many biomedical engineering curricula. The aim of the current study was to address the research question, "Does PBL enable students to develop desirable professional engineering skills?" The desirable skills identified were communication, teamwork, problem…

An exploration of the biomedical optics course construction of undergraduate biomedical engineering program in medical colleges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Shijun; Lyu, Jie; Zhang, Peiming

2017-08-01

In this paper, the teaching goals, teaching contents and teaching methods in biomedical optics course construction are discussed. From the dimension of teaching goals, students should master the principle of optical inspection on the human body, diagnosis and treatment of methodology and instruments, through the study of the theory and practice of this course, and can utilize biomedical optics methods to solve practical problems in the clinical medical engineering practice. From the dimension of teaching contents, based on the characteristics of biomedical engineering in medical colleges, the organic integration of engineering aspects, medical optical instruments, and biomedical aspects dispersed in human anatomy, human physiology, clinical medicine fundamental related to the biomedical optics is build. Noninvasive measurement of the human body composition and noninvasive optical imaging of the human body were taken as actual problems in biomedical optics fields. Typical medical applications such as eye optics and laser medicine were also integrated into the theory and practice teaching. From the dimension of teaching methods, referencing to organ-system based medical teaching mode, optical principle and instrument principle were taught by teachers from school of medical instruments, and the histological characteristics and clinical actual need in areas such as digestive diseases and urinary surgery were taught by teachers from school of basic medicine or clinical medicine of medical colleges. Furthermore, clinical application guidance would be provided by physician and surgeons in hospitals.

Hands-on curriculum teaches biomedical engineering concepts to home-schooled students.

PubMed

Sagstetter, Ann M; Nimunkar, Amit J; Tompkins, Willis J

2009-01-01

University level outreach has increased over the last decade to stimulate K-12 student interest in engineering related fields. Home schooling students are one of the groups that are valued for engineering admissions due to diligent study habits and high achievement scores. However, home schooled students have inadequate access to science, math, and engineering related resources, which precludes the development of interdisciplinary teaching methods. To address this problem, we have developed a hands-on, STEM based curriculum as a safe and comprehensive supplement to current home schooling curricula. The ultimate goal is to stimulate university-student relations and subsequently increase engineering recruitment opportunities. Our pre and post workshop survey comparisons demonstrate that integrating disciplines, via the manner presented in this study, provides a K-12 student-friendly engineering learning method.

A Course in Medicine and Clinical Engineering for Engineers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Webster, John G.

A biomedical engineering course at the University of Wisconsin is described. The course is a comprehensive survey designed to develop the student's ability to participate in the solution of medical problems, particularly in areas involving technology. Course objectives and lecture outlines are provided. (MLH)

Are graduate students rational? Evidence from the market for biomedical scientists.

PubMed

Blume-Kohout, Margaret E; Clack, John W

2013-01-01

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget expansion from 1998 through 2003 increased demand for biomedical research, raising relative wages and total employment in the market for biomedical scientists. However, because research doctorates in biomedical sciences can often take six years or more to complete, the full labor supply response to such changes in market conditions is not immediate, but rather is observed over a period of several years. Economic rational expectations models assume that prospective students anticipate these future changes, and also that students take into account the opportunity costs of their pursuing graduate training. Prior empirical research on student enrollment and degree completions in science and engineering (S&E) fields indicates that "cobweb" expectations prevail: that is, at least in theory, prospective graduate students respond to contemporaneous changes in market wages and employment, but do not forecast further changes that will arise by the time they complete their degrees and enter the labor market. In this article, we analyze time-series data on wages and employment of biomedical scientists versus alternative careers, on completions of S&E bachelor's degrees and biomedical sciences PhDs, and on research expenditures funded both by NIH and by biopharmaceutical firms, to examine the responsiveness of the biomedical sciences labor supply to changes in market conditions. Consistent with previous studies, we find that enrollments and completions in biomedical sciences PhD programs are responsive to market conditions at the time of students' enrollment. More striking, however, is the close correspondence between graduate student enrollments and completions, and changes in availability of NIH-funded traineeships, fellowships, and research assistantships.

The real world: BME graduates reflect on whether universities are providing adequate preparation for a career in industry.

PubMed

Berglund, Jennifer

2015-01-01

Let's face it: In the United States, a college degree isn't what it used to be. These days, 46% of recent college graduates consider themselves underemployed and in jobs that do not require their college degrees--degrees that have already cost many of these grads and their families hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans, with no promise of a job and salary to pay those loans back. But engineering majors are said to be outliers. Engineering as a field is widely considered one of, if not the most, lucrative academic paths for students seeking well-paid employment immediately following college. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that nearly 40% of the 45 most highly paid professions that require only a bachelor's degree are in engineering. Salaries for all biomedical engineers, entry level or not, are among the highest, with a median pay of US$86,960. And engineering departments at colleges are not shy to advertise these numbers: the Biomedical Engineering Department at the University of Texas, Austin, declares on its Web page that, "electing to graduate with a major in biomedical engineering opens the door to an ever-growing amount of job opportunities," citing a 72%, ten-year job growth forecast. Boston University's program cites U.S. News and World Report's claim that BME is the country's fastest-growing occupation.

Medical imaging education in biomedical engineering curriculum: courseware development and application through a hybrid teaching model.

PubMed

Zhao, Weizhao; Li, Xiping; Chen, Hairong; Manns, Fabrice

2012-01-01

Medical Imaging is a key training component in Biomedical Engineering programs. Medical imaging education is interdisciplinary training, involving physics, mathematics, chemistry, electrical engineering, computer engineering, and applications in biology and medicine. Seeking an efficient teaching method for instructors and an effective learning environment for students has long been a goal for medical imaging education. By the support of NSF grants, we developed the medical imaging teaching software (MITS) and associated dynamic assessment tracking system (DATS). The MITS/DATS system has been applied to junior and senior medical imaging classes through a hybrid teaching model. The results show that student's learning gain improved, particularly in concept understanding and simulation project completion. The results also indicate disparities in subjective perception between junior and senior classes. Three institutions are collaborating to expand the courseware system and plan to apply it to different class settings.

Considering Student Voices: Examining the Experiences of Underrepresented Students in Intervention Programs

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gibau, Gina Sanchez

2015-01-01

Qualitative studies that examine the experiences of underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are comparatively few. This study explores the self-reported experiences of underrepresented graduate students in the biomedical sciences of a large, midwestern, urban university. Document analysis of…

Considering Student Voices: Examining the Experiences of Underrepresented Students in Intervention Programs

PubMed Central

Gibau, Gina Sanchez

2015-01-01

Qualitative studies that examine the experiences of underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are comparatively few. This study explores the self-reported experiences of underrepresented graduate students in the biomedical sciences of a large, midwestern, urban university. Document analysis of interview transcripts from program evaluations capture firsthand accounts of student experiences and reveal the need for a critical examination of current intervention programs designed to reverse the trend of underrepresentation in the biomedical sciences. Findings point to themes aligned around the benefits and challenges of program components, issues of social adjustment, the utility of supportive relationships, and environmental impacts. PMID:26163562

Engineering perceptions of female and male K-12 students: effects of a multimedia overview on elementary, middle-, and high-school students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, Amy M.; Ozogul, Gamze; DiDonato, Matt D.; Reisslein, Martin

2013-10-01

Computer-based multimedia presentations employing animated agents (avatars) can positively impact perceptions about engineering; the current research advances our understanding of this effect to pre-college populations, the main target for engineering outreach. The study examines the effectiveness of a brief computer-based intervention with animated agents in improving perceptions about engineering. Five hundred sixty-five elementary, middle-, and high-school students in the southwestern USA viewed a short computer-based multimedia overview of four engineering disciplines (electrical, chemical, biomedical, and environmental) with embedded animated agents. Students completed identical surveys measuring five subscales of engineering perceptions immediately before and after the intervention. Analyses of pre- and post-surveys demonstrated that the computer presentation significantly improved perceptions for each student group, and that effects were stronger for elementary school students, compared to middle- and high-school students.

Light Weight Portable Plasma Medical Device - Plasma Engineering Research Laboratory

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-01

Millennial Student. 15. Thiyagarajan, M. (2011). Portable Plasma Biomedical Device for Cancer Treatment. Irvine, California: ASME Emerging...American Society of Mechanical Engineers Sigma Xi Toastmasters International Club MIT Entrepreneur Club Eta Kappa Nu Tau Beta Pi Institute of...Learning Environment. Corpus Christi, TX: TAMUCC 1st Faculty Symposium: Course Design for the Millennial Student. Thiyagarajan, M. (2011). Portable

Learning through projects in the training of biomedical engineers: an application experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gambi, José Antonio Li; Peme, Carmen

2011-09-01

Learning through Projects in the curriculum consists of both the identification and analysis of a problem, and the design of solution, execution and evaluation strategies, with teams of students. The project is conceived as the creation of a set of strategies articulated and developed during a certain amount of time to solve a problem contextualized in situations continually changing, where the constant evaluation provides feedback to make adjustments. In 2009, Learning through Projects was applied on the subject Hospital Facilities and three intervention projects were developed in health centers. This first stage is restricted to the analysis of the aspects that are considered to be basic to the professional training: a) Context knowledge: The future biomedical engineers must be familiarized with the complex health system where they will develop their profession; b) Team work: This is one of the essential skills in the training of students, since Biomedical Engineering connects the knowledge of sciences of life with the knowledge of exact sciences and technology; c) Regulations: The activities related to the profession require the implementation of regulations; therefore, to be aware of and to apply these regulations is a fundamental aspect to be analyzed in this stage; d) Project evaluation: It refers to the elaboration and studying of co-evaluation reports, which helps to find out if Learning through Projects contributes to the training. This new line of investigation has the purpose of discovering if the application of this learning strategy makes changes in the training of students in relation to their future professional career. The findings of this ongoing investigation will allow for the analysis of the possibility of extending its application. Key words: engineering, biomedical, learning, projects, strategies.

Are Graduate Students Rational? Evidence from the Market for Biomedical Scientists

PubMed Central

Blume-Kohout, Margaret E.; Clack, John W.

2013-01-01

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget expansion from 1998 through 2003 increased demand for biomedical research, raising relative wages and total employment in the market for biomedical scientists. However, because research doctorates in biomedical sciences can often take six years or more to complete, the full labor supply response to such changes in market conditions is not immediate, but rather is observed over a period of several years. Economic rational expectations models assume that prospective students anticipate these future changes, and also that students take into account the opportunity costs of their pursuing graduate training. Prior empirical research on student enrollment and degree completions in science and engineering (S&E) fields indicates that “cobweb” expectations prevail: that is, at least in theory, prospective graduate students respond to contemporaneous changes in market wages and employment, but do not forecast further changes that will arise by the time they complete their degrees and enter the labor market. In this article, we analyze time-series data on wages and employment of biomedical scientists versus alternative careers, on completions of S&E bachelor's degrees and biomedical sciences PhDs, and on research expenditures funded both by NIH and by biopharmaceutical firms, to examine the responsiveness of the biomedical sciences labor supply to changes in market conditions. Consistent with previous studies, we find that enrollments and completions in biomedical sciences PhD programs are responsive to market conditions at the time of students' enrollment. More striking, however, is the close correspondence between graduate student enrollments and completions, and changes in availability of NIH-funded traineeships, fellowships, and research assistantships. PMID:24376573

Career and Technology Center Guides Students in Real-Life Careers | Poster

Cancer.gov

By Carolynne Keenan, Contributing Writer Frederick County Public School students have a unique opportunity—a chance to get a real-world, hands-on experience in biomedical science and biotechnology before they even graduate from high school, thanks to the Frederick County Career and Technology Center (CTC). Several years ago, the CTC established its biomedical sciences program with a curriculum from Project Lead the Way (PLTW), a nonprofit, nationwide developer of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in elementary, middle, and high schools.

Developing student collaborations across disciplines, distances, and institutions.

PubMed

Knisley, Jeff; Behravesh, Esfandiar

2010-01-01

Because quantitative biology requires skills and concepts from a disparate collection of different disciplines, the scientists of the near future will increasingly need to rely on collaborations to produce results. Correspondingly, students in disciplines impacted by quantitative biology will need to be taught how to create and engage in such collaborations. In response to this important curricular need, East Tennessee State University and Georgia Technological University/Emory University cooperated in an unprecedented curricular experiment in which theoretically oriented students at East Tennessee State designed biophysical models that were implemented and tested experimentally by biomedical engineers at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Technological University and Emory University. Implementing the collaborations between two institutions allowed an assessment of the student collaborations from before the groups of students had met for the first time until after they had finished their projects, thus providing insight about the formation and conduct of such collaborations that could not have been obtained otherwise.

Developing Student Collaborations across Disciplines, Distances, and Institutions

PubMed Central

Behravesh, Esfandiar

2010-01-01

Because quantitative biology requires skills and concepts from a disparate collection of different disciplines, the scientists of the near future will increasingly need to rely on collaborations to produce results. Correspondingly, students in disciplines impacted by quantitative biology will need to be taught how to create and engage in such collaborations. In response to this important curricular need, East Tennessee State University and Georgia Technological University/Emory University cooperated in an unprecedented curricular experiment in which theoretically oriented students at East Tennessee State designed biophysical models that were implemented and tested experimentally by biomedical engineers at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Technological University and Emory University. Implementing the collaborations between two institutions allowed an assessment of the student collaborations from before the groups of students had met for the first time until after they had finished their projects, thus providing insight about the formation and conduct of such collaborations that could not have been obtained otherwise. PMID:20810970

The Brazilian research and teaching center in biomedicine and aerospace biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Russomano, T; Falcao, P F; Dalmarco, G; Martinelli, L; Cardoso, R; Santos, M A; Sparenberg, A

2008-08-01

The recent engagement of Brazil in the construction and utilization of the International Space Station has motivated several Brazilian research institutions and universities to establish study centers related to Space Sciences. The Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) is no exception. The University initiated in 1993 the first degree course training students to operate commercial aircraft in South America (the School of Aeronautical Sciences. A further step was the decision to build the first Brazilian laboratory dedicated to the conduct of experiments in ground-based microgravity simulation. Established in 1998, the Microgravity Laboratory, which was located in the Instituto de Pesquisas Cientificas e Tecnologicas (IPCT), was supported by the Schools of Medicine, Aeronautical Sciences and Electrical Engineering/Biomedical Engineering. At the end of 2006, the Microgravity Laboratory became a Center and was transferred to the School of Engineering. The principal activities of the Microgravity Centre are the development of research projects related to human physiology before, during and after ground-based microgravity simulation and parabolic flights, to aviation medicine in the 21st century and to aerospace biomedical engineering. The history of Brazilian, and why not say worldwide, space science should unquestionably go through PUCRS. As time passes, the pioneering spirit of our University in the aerospace area has become undeniable. This is due to the group of professionals, students, technicians and staff in general that have once worked or are still working in the Center of Microgravity, a group of faculty and students that excel in their undeniable technical-scientific qualifications.

Inspiring engineering minds to advance human health: the Henry Samueli School of Engineering's Department of BME.

PubMed

Lee, Abraham; Wirtanen, Erik

2012-07-01

The growth of biomedical engineering at The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) has been rapid since the Center for Biomedical Engineering was first formed in 1998 [and was later renamed as the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) in 2002]. Our current mission statement, “Inspiring Engineering Minds to Advance Human Health,” serves as a reminder of why we exist, what we do, and the core principles that we value and by which we abide. BME exists to advance the state of human health via engineering innovation and practices. To attain our goal, we are empowering our faculty to inspire and mobilize our students to address health problems. We treasure the human being, particularly the human mind and health. We believe that BME is where minds are nurtured, challenged, and disciplined, and it is also where the health of the human is held as a core mission value that deserves our utmost priority (Figure 1). Advancing human health is not a theoretical practice; it requires bridging between disciplines (engineering and medicine) and between communities (academic and industry).

United States Air Force Graduate Student Summer Support Program 1986. Program Technical Report. Volume 2

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-12-01

Engineering University of Wisconsin- Madison Mechanics, 1985 Dept. of Engineering Mechanics Specialty: Engineering Mechanics 1415 Johnson Drive Assigned: RPL... Madison , WI 53706 (608) 262-3990 Brian J. Doherty Degree: B.S.E., Bioenginnering, 1984 Duke University Specialty: Bloengineering Biomedical Engineering...Assigned: ML Kent, OH 44242 (216) 672-2246 Gregory L. Walker Degree: B.S., Engineering University of Wisconsin- Madison Mechanics, 1985 Engineering

Improvement of medical content in the curriculum of biomedical engineering based on assessment of students outcomes.

PubMed

Abdulhay, Enas; Khnouf, Ruba; Haddad, Shireen; Al-Bashir, Areen

2017-08-04

Improvement of medical content in Biomedical Engineering curricula based on a qualitative assessment process or on a comparison with another high-standard program has been approached by a number of studies. However, the quantitative assessment tools have not been emphasized. The quantitative assessment tools can be more accurate and robust in cases of challenging multidisciplinary fields like that of Biomedical Engineering which includes biomedicine elements mixed with technology aspects. The major limitations of the previous research are the high dependence on surveys or pure qualitative approaches as well as the absence of strong focus on medical outcomes without implicit confusion with the technical ones. The proposed work presents the development and evaluation of an accurate/robust quantitative approach to the improvement of the medical content in the challenging multidisciplinary BME curriculum. The work presents quantitative assessment tools and subsequent improvement of curriculum medical content applied, as example for explanation, to the ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, USA) accredited biomedical engineering BME department at Jordan University of Science and Technology. The quantitative results of assessment of curriculum/course, capstone, exit exam, course assessment by student (CAS) as well as of surveys filled by alumni, seniors, employers and training supervisors were, first, mapped to the expected students' outcomes related to the medical field (SOsM). The collected data were then analyzed and discussed to find curriculum weakness points by tracking shortcomings in every outcome degree of achievement. Finally, actions were taken to fill in the gaps of the curriculum. Actions were also mapped to the students' medical outcomes (SOsM). Weighted averages of obtained quantitative values, mapped to SOsM, indicated accurately the achievement levels of all outcomes as well as the necessary improvements to be performed in curriculum. Mapping the improvements to SOsM also helps in the assessment of the following cycle. The suggested assessment tools can be generalized and extended to any other BME department. Robust improvement of medical content in BME curriculum can subsequently be achieved.

Cardiovascular system simulation in biomedical engineering education.

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rideout, V. C.

1972-01-01

Use of complex cardiovascular system models, in conjunction with a large hybrid computer, in biomedical engineering courses. A cardiovascular blood pressure-flow model, driving a compartment model for the study of dye transport, was set up on the computer for use as a laboratory exercise by students who did not have the computer experience or skill to be able to easily set up such a simulation involving some 27 differential equations running at 'real time' rate. The students were given detailed instructions regarding the model, and were then able to study effects such as those due to septal and valve defects upon the pressure, flow, and dye dilution curves. The success of this experiment in the use of involved models in engineering courses was such that it seems that this type of laboratory exercise might be considered for use in physiology courses as an adjunct to animal experiments.

Engineering Veterinary Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eyre, Peter

2002-01-01

Calls for a new model for veterinary education, drawn from engineering education, which imparts a strong core of fundamental biomedical knowledge and multi-species clinical experience to all students than allows a genuine opportunity for differentiation into strongly focused subject areas that provide in-depth education and training appropriate to…

Two-Compartment Pharmacokinetic Models for Chemical Engineers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kanneganti, Kumud; Simon, Laurent

2011-01-01

The transport of potassium permanganate between two continuous-stirred vessels was investigated to help chemical and biomedical engineering students understand two-compartment pharmacokinetic models. Concepts of modeling, mass balance, parameter estimation and Laplace transform were applied to the two-unit process. A good agreement was achieved…

A systematic approach for introducing innovative product design in courses with engineering and nonengineering students.

PubMed

Patterson, P E

2007-01-01

In our new global economy, biomedical product development teams need to be even more innovative in an environment constrained by fewer resources with less time from concept to market. Teams are often comprised of individuals spread around the world. To simulate this setting, we revised an existing course to incorporate teams of on-campus and distance students, with each team including both engineers and other specialties. Through interactive lectures and projects, we presented a systematic approach to innovation that should be useful to engineers and non-engineers alike. Students found the course challenging and exciting, displaying an improved ability to work in distributed teams and in developing innovative design solutions.

A pilot biomedical engineering course in rapid prototyping for mobile health.

PubMed

Stokes, Todd H; Venugopalan, Janani; Hubbard, Elena N; Wang, May D

2013-01-01

Rapid prototyping of medically assistive mobile devices promises to fuel innovation and provides opportunity for hands-on engineering training in biomedical engineering curricula. This paper presents the design and outcomes of a course offered during a 16-week semester in Fall 2011 with 11 students enrolled. The syllabus covered a mobile health design process from end-to-end, including storyboarding, non-functional prototypes, integrated circuit programming, 3D modeling, 3D printing, cloud computing database programming, and developing patient engagement through animated videos describing the benefits of a new device. Most technologies presented in this class are open source and thus provide unlimited "hackability". They are also cost-effective and easily transferrable to other departments.

Manpower development for the biomedical industry space.

PubMed

Goh, James C H

2013-01-01

The Biomedical Sciences (BMS) Cluster is one of four key pillars of the Singapore economy. The Singapore Government has injected research funding for basic and translational research to attract companies to carry out their commercial R&D activities. To further intensify the R&D efforts, the National Research Foundation (NRF) was set up to coordinate the research activities of different agencies within the larger national framework and to fund strategic R&D initiatives. In recent years, funding agencies began to focus on support of translational and clinical research, particularly those with potential for commercialization. Translational research is beginning to have traction, in particular research funding for the development of innovation medical devices. Therefore, the Biomedical Sciences sector is projected to grow which means that there is a need to invest in human capital development to achieve sustainable growth. In support of this, education and training programs to strengthen the manpower capabilities for the Biomedical Sciences industry have been developed. In recent years, undergraduate and graduate degree courses in biomedical engineering/bioengineering have been developing at a rapid rate. The goal is to train students with skills to understand complex issues of biomedicine and to develop and implement of advanced technological applications to these problems. There are a variety of career opportunities open to graduates in biomedical engineering, however regardless of the type of career choices, students must not only focus on achieving good grades. They have to develop their marketability to employers through internships, overseas exchange programs, and involvement in leadership-type activities. Furthermore, curriculum has to be developed with biomedical innovation in mind and ensure relevance to the industry. The objective of this paper is to present the NUS Bioengineering undergraduate program in relation to manpower development for the biomedical industry in Singapore.

Team Problem Solving Strategies with a Survey of These Methods Used by Faculty Members in Engineering Technology

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marcus, Michael L.; Winters, Dixie L.

2004-01-01

Students from science, engineering, and technology programs should be able to work together as members of project teams to find solutions to technical problems. The exercise in this paper describes the methods actually used by a project team from a Biomedical Instrumentation Corporation in which scientists, technicians, and engineers from various…

A Success Story: Recruiting & Retaining Underrepresented Minority Doctoral Students in Biomedical Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reichert, William M.

2006-01-01

There are various ways to succeed in recruiting and retaining underrepresented minority (URM) doctoral students; but key to them all is the creation of real student-faculty relationships, which demonstrate by example that diversity and excellence can and should coexist. This cannot be delegated or done indirectly, and no amount of outreach, campus…

Creating a pipeline of talent for informatics: STEM initiative for high school students in computer science, biology, and biomedical informatics

PubMed Central

Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta; Gopalakrishnan, Vanathi; Lotze, Michael T.; Becich, Michael J.

2014-01-01

This editorial provides insights into how informatics can attract highly trained students by involving them in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) training at the high school level and continuing to provide mentorship and research opportunities through the formative years of their education. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be expert in the emergent fields in front of them requires acceleration at an early time point. Both pathology (and biomedical) informatics are new disciplines which would benefit from involvement by students at an early stage of their education. In 2009, Michael T Lotze MD, Kirsten Livesey (then a medical student, now a medical resident at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)), Richard Hersheberger, PhD (Currently, Dean at Roswell Park), and Megan Seippel, MS (the administrator) launched the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Summer Academy to bring high school students for an 8 week summer academy focused on Cancer Biology. Initially, pathology and biomedical informatics were involved only in the classroom component of the UPCI Summer Academy. In 2011, due to popular interest, an informatics track called Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) was launched. CoSBBI currently acts as a feeder program for the undergraduate degree program in bioinformatics at the University of Pittsburgh, which is a joint degree offered by the Departments of Biology and Computer Science. We believe training in bioinformatics is the best foundation for students interested in future careers in pathology informatics or biomedical informatics. We describe our approach to the recruitment, training and research mentoring of high school students to create a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics. We emphasize here how mentoring of high school students in pathology informatics and biomedical informatics will be critical to assuring their success as leaders in the era of big data and personalized medicine. PMID:24860688

Creating a pipeline of talent for informatics: STEM initiative for high school students in computer science, biology, and biomedical informatics.

PubMed

Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta; Gopalakrishnan, Vanathi; Lotze, Michael T; Becich, Michael J

2014-01-01

This editorial provides insights into how informatics can attract highly trained students by involving them in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) training at the high school level and continuing to provide mentorship and research opportunities through the formative years of their education. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be expert in the emergent fields in front of them requires acceleration at an early time point. Both pathology (and biomedical) informatics are new disciplines which would benefit from involvement by students at an early stage of their education. In 2009, Michael T Lotze MD, Kirsten Livesey (then a medical student, now a medical resident at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC)), Richard Hersheberger, PhD (Currently, Dean at Roswell Park), and Megan Seippel, MS (the administrator) launched the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Summer Academy to bring high school students for an 8 week summer academy focused on Cancer Biology. Initially, pathology and biomedical informatics were involved only in the classroom component of the UPCI Summer Academy. In 2011, due to popular interest, an informatics track called Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) was launched. CoSBBI currently acts as a feeder program for the undergraduate degree program in bioinformatics at the University of Pittsburgh, which is a joint degree offered by the Departments of Biology and Computer Science. We believe training in bioinformatics is the best foundation for students interested in future careers in pathology informatics or biomedical informatics. We describe our approach to the recruitment, training and research mentoring of high school students to create a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics. We emphasize here how mentoring of high school students in pathology informatics and biomedical informatics will be critical to assuring their success as leaders in the era of big data and personalized medicine.

Clinical Immersion and Biomedical Engineering Design Education: "Engineering Grand Rounds".

PubMed

Walker, Matthew; Churchwell, André L

2016-03-01

Grand Rounds is a ritual of medical education and inpatient care comprised of presenting the medical problems and treatment of a patient to an audience of physicians, residents, and medical students. Traditionally, the patient would be in attendance for the presentation and would answer questions. Grand Rounds has evolved considerably over the years with most sessions being didactic-rarely having a patient present (although, in some instances, an actor will portray the patient). Other members of the team, such as nurses, nurse practitioners, and biomedical engineers, are not traditionally involved in the formal teaching process. In this study we examine the rapid ideation in a clinical setting to forge a system of cross talk between engineers and physicians as a steady state at the praxis of ideation and implementation.

Incorporating High School Outreach into ChE Courses.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ross, Julia M.; Bayles, Taryn M.

2003-01-01

Describes an undergraduate-level introductory course in biomedical engineering introduced at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County which allows students to delve deeply into an area of interest not covered in the lecture material and provide a forum for students to hone their presentation and group interaction skills through outreach…

Demand for Interdisciplinary Laboratories for Physiology Research by Undergraduate Students in Biosciences and Biomedical Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clase, Kari L.; Hein, Patrick W.; Pelaez, Nancy J.

2008-01-01

Physiology as a discipline is uniquely positioned to engage undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research in response to the 2006-2011 National Science Foundation Strategic Plan call for innovative transformational research, which emphasizes multidisciplinary projects. To prepare undergraduates for careers that cross disciplinary…

Virtual firm as a role-playing tool for biomedical education.

PubMed

Blagosklonov, Oleg; Soto-Romero, Georges; Guyon, Florent; Courjal, Nadège; Euphrasie, Sebatien; Yahiaoui, Reda; Butterlin, Nadia

2006-01-01

The paper describes design of a role-playing tool based on the experience of the practice firm which allows participants to obtain relevant and practical on-the-job experience. The students played the roles of the employees and the applicants for vacant positions at the virtual firm - a small business specialized in biomedical sector - founded to design the demonstration vehicle for a biomedical device. We found that this innovative concept may be used to improve the young engineers performance and to facilitate their post-graduate integration.

Biotechnology Process Engineering Center at MIT Home

Science.gov Websites

is speaking at the 2004 Congressional Biomedical Research Caucus Briefings on July 14th. Her briefing | Education & Outreach | Research | Industrial Programs | Student Leadership Council Facilities | Umbrella

Sharing best practices in teaching biomedical engineering design.

PubMed

Allen, R H; Acharya, S; Jancuk, C; Shoukas, A A

2013-09-01

In an effort to share best practices in undergraduate engineering design education, we describe the origin, evolution and the current status of the undergraduate biomedical engineering design team program at Johns Hopkins University. Specifically, we describe the program and judge the quality of the pedagogy by relating it to sponsor feedback, project outcomes, external recognition and student satisfaction. The general pedagogic practices, some of which are unique to Hopkins, that have worked best include: (1) having a hierarchical team structure, selecting team leaders the Spring semester prior to the academic year, and empowering them to develop and manage their teams, (2) incorporating a longitudinal component that incudes freshmen as part of the team, (3) having each team choose from among pre-screened clinical problems, (4) developing relationships and fostering medical faculty, industry and government to allow students access to engineers, clinicians and clinical environments as needed, (5) providing didactic sessions on topics related to requirements for the next presentation, (6) employing judges from engineering, medicine, industry and government to evaluate designs and provide constructive criticisms approximately once every 3-4 weeks and (7) requiring students to test the efficacy of their designs. Institutional support and resources are crucial for the design program to flourish. Most importantly, our willingness and flexibility to change the program each year based on feedback from students, sponsors, outcomes and judges provides a mechanism for us to test new approaches and continue or modify those that work well, and eliminate those that did not.

An Example-Centric Tool for Context-Driven Design of Biomedical Devices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dzombak, Rachel; Mehta, Khanjan; Butler, Peter

2015-01-01

Engineering is one of the most global professions, with design teams developing technologies for an increasingly interconnected and borderless world. In order for engineering students to be proficient in creating viable solutions to the challenges faced by diverse populations, they must receive an expe­riential education in rigorous engineering…

Designing a hands-on brain computer interface laboratory course.

PubMed

Khalighinejad, Bahar; Long, Laura Kathleen; Mesgarani, Nima

2016-08-01

Devices and systems that interact with the brain have become a growing field of research and development in recent years. Engineering students are well positioned to contribute to both hardware development and signal analysis techniques in this field. However, this area has been left out of most engineering curricula. We developed an electroencephalography (EEG) based brain computer interface (BCI) laboratory course to educate students through hands-on experiments. The course is offered jointly by the Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science Departments of Columbia University in the City of New York and is open to senior undergraduate and graduate students. The course provides an effective introduction to the experimental design, neuroscience concepts, data analysis techniques, and technical skills required in the field of BCI.

An assessment strategy for proposals of engineering projects in the Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering Curriculum at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa.

PubMed

Castañeda-Villa, N; Jiménez-González, A; Ortiz-Posadas, M R

2015-08-01

Since 1974, the Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering Program (BBME) is offered at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, in Mexico City. By design, it must be completed in four years (12 trimesters) and, in the latter three, the senior students work on a BME project, which is done by completing three modules: Project Seminar (PS), Project on BME I and Project on BME II. In the PS module, the student must find a problem of interest in the BME field and suggest a solution through the development of an Engineering Project Proposal (EPP). Currently, the module is being taught by two faculty members of the BBME, who instruct students on how to develop their EPPs and evaluate their progress by reviewing a number of EPPs during the trimester. This generates a huge workload for the module instructors, which makes it necessary to involve more faculty members trimester-to-trimester (i.e. every 12 weeks) and, therefore, to create a set of systematic guidelines that ease the evaluation process for new instructors. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to present an assessment strategy (in the form of an assessment matrix) for the PS module as well as some preliminary results after two trimesters of its implementation.

Building integrated pathways to independence for diverse biomedical researchers: Project Pathways, the BUILD program at Xavier University of Louisiana.

PubMed

Foroozesh, Maryam; Giguette, Marguerite; Morgan, Kathleen; Johanson, Kelly; D'Amour, Gene; Coston, Tiera; Wilkins-Green, Clair

2017-01-01

Xavier University of Louisiana is a historically Black and Catholic university that is nationally recognized for its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Approximately 73% of Xavier's students are African American, and about 77% major in the biomedical sciences. Xavier is a national leader in the number of STEM majors who go on to receive M.D. degrees and Ph.D. degrees in science and engineering. Despite Xavier's advances in this area, African Americans still earn about 7.5% of the Bachelor's degrees, less than 8% of the Master's degrees, and less than 5% of the doctoral degrees conferred in STEM disciplines in the United States. Additionally, although many well-prepared, highly-motivated students are attracted by Xavier's reputation in the sciences, many of these students, though bright and capable, come from underperforming public school systems and receive substandard preparation in STEM disciplines. The purpose of this article is to describe how Xavier works to overcome unequal education backgrounds and socioeconomic challenges to develop student talent through expanding biomedical training opportunities and build on an established reputation in science education. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)-funded BUILD (Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity) Program at Xavier University of Louisiana, Project Pathways , is a highly-innovative program designed to broaden the career interests of students early on, and to engage them in activities that entice them to continue their education towards biomedical research careers. Project strategies involve a transformation of Xavier's academic and non-academic programs through the redesign, supplementation and integration of academic advising, tutoring, career services, personal counseling, undergraduate research training, faculty research mentoring, and development of new biomedical and research skills courses. The Program also focuses on mentor training and providing faculty members with opportunities to improve their teaching skills as well as their research competitiveness. In addition to the wide range of activities supported by BUILD within the institution, Xavier University is partnering with a number of major research universities across the nation to achieve Project Pathways' goals. The strategies developed by Project Pathways are designed to address the challenges and barriers Xavier students face as they work towards graduate studies and entering the biomedical workforce. Xavier University of Louisiana has a long history of providing high quality, rigorous education to African American students in a very supportive environment with highly dedicated faculty and staff. The program highlighted here could be used by other institutions as a model program for assisting students in STEM and other biomedical fields of study to successfully matriculate through college and graduate school and develop their research careers.

'can i get your Email': Gender, Networking and Social Capital in AN Undergraduate Bioengineering Classroom

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erickson, Shelley K.

Based on observations and interviews, this article explores how female and male biomedical engineering students network and generate social capital (who one knows) in an undergraduate classroom. Stark differences were observed between female and male students and their interactions with a series of guest lecturers. Although women engineering students may be differentially affected by how they raise their social capital, this study does not suggest that women engineering students are wholly incapable of raising their social capital. Rather, a disconnect occurs between the student population receiving information about networking and women students acting on informal and spontaneous opportunities as they arise. Institutional and departmental support (i.e., internship programs and discussion in the classroom and at orientation) appears to favor those who rely on more formal means of networking.

Engineering excellence in breakthrough biomedical technologies: bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside.

PubMed

Schultz, Jane S; Rodgers, V G J

2012-07-01

The Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), was established in 2006 and is the youngest department in the Bourns College of Engineering. It is an interdisciplinary research engine that builds strength from highly recognized experts in biochemistry, biophysics, biology, and engineering, focusing on common critical themes. The range of faculty research interests is notable for its diversity, from the basic cell biology through cell function to the physiology of the whole organism, each directed at breakthroughs in biomedical devices for measurement and therapy. The department forges future leaders in bioengineering, mirroring the field in being energetic, interdisciplinary, and fast moving at the frontiers of biomedical discoveries. Our educational programs combine a solid foundation in bio logical sciences and engineering, diverse communication skills, and training in the most advanced quantitative bioengineering research. Bioengineering at UCR also includes the Bioengineering Interdepartmental Graduate (BIG) program. With its slogan Start-Grow-Be-BIG, it is already recognized for its many accomplishments, including being third in the nation in 2011 for bioengineering students receiving National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships as well as being one of the most ethnically inclusive programs in the nation.

An Italian Education: IEEE Pulse talks with Riccardo Pietrabissa, president of Italy's National Bioengineering Group, about Italian progress and challenges in biomedical engineering education.

PubMed

Pietrabissa, Riccardo; Reynolds, Pamela

2015-01-01

From Leonardo da Vinci's designs for ball bearings to the incredible engineering wizardry behind the Ferrari, the inventive, inquisitive, and ingenious spirit of the engineer has always lived--and thrived--in Italy. From education to research to product development, Italy has always been regarded as an engineering leader. But does this apply to biomedical engineering (BME)? Despite many successes, questions loom, as they do at engineering schools worldwide. Concerns such as whether BME programs are providing students with enough focused, practical, hands-on training remain at the forefront, as does the question of whether graduates will be able to find jobs in industry after university studies are over. Here, IEEE Pulse explores these topics with Riccardo Pietrabissa, president of the Gruppo Nazionale di Bioingegneria (National Bioengineering Group) and a full professor in the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano.

Branding the bio/biomedical engineering degree.

PubMed

Voigt, Herbert F

2011-01-01

The future challenges to medical and biological engineering, sometimes referred to as biomedical engineering or simply bioengineering, are many. Some of these are identifiable now and others will emerge from time to time as new technologies are introduced and harnessed. There is a fundamental issue regarding "Branding the bio/biomedical engineering degree" that requires a common understanding of what is meant by a B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering, Bioengineering, or Biological Engineering. In this paper we address some of the issues involved in branding the Bio/Biomedical Engineering degree, with the aim of clarifying the Bio/Biomedical Engineering brand.

Designing a Hands-On Brain Computer Interface Laboratory Course

PubMed Central

Khalighinejad, Bahar; Long, Laura Kathleen; Mesgarani, Nima

2017-01-01

Devices and systems that interact with the brain have become a growing field of research and development in recent years. Engineering students are well positioned to contribute to both hardware development and signal analysis techniques in this field. However, this area has been left out of most engineering curricula. We developed an electroencephalography (EEG) based brain computer interface (BCI) laboratory course to educate students through hands-on experiments. The course is offered jointly by the Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science Departments of Columbia University in the City of New York and is open to senior undergraduate and graduate students. The course provides an effective introduction to the experimental design, neuroscience concepts, data analysis techniques, and technical skills required in the field of BCI. PMID:28268946

Laboratory: Undergraduate Laboratory Experiment Teaching Fundamental Concepts of Rheology in Context of Sickle Cell Anemia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vernengo, Jennifer; Purdy, Caitlin; Farrell, Stephanie

2014-01-01

This paper describes a biomedical engineering experiment that introduces students to rheology. Healthy and sickle-cell blood analogs are prepared that are composed of chitosan particles suspended in aqueous glycerol solutions, which substitute for RBCs and plasma, respectively. Students study flow properties of the blood analogs with a viscometer…

Using LEGO Kits to Teach Higher Level Problem Solving Skills in System Dynamics: A Case Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Yi; de Vries, Charlotte; Dunsworth, Qi

2018-01-01

System Dynamics is a required course offered to junior Mechanical Engineering students at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. It addresses the intercoupling dynamics of a wide range of dynamic systems: including mechanical, electrical, fluid, hydraulic, electromechanical, and biomedical systems. This course is challenging for students due to the…

New frontiers in biomedical science and engineering during 2014-2015.

PubMed

Liu, Feng; Lee, Dong-Hoon; Lagoa, Ricardo; Kumar, Sandeep

2015-01-01

The International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (ICBEB) is an international meeting held once a year. This, the fourth International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (ICBEB2015), will be held in Shanghai, China, during August 18th-21st, 2015. This annual conference intends to provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners at home and abroad to present the most recent frontiers and future challenges in the fields of biomedical science, biomedical engineering, biomaterials, bioinformatics and computational biology, biomedical imaging and signal processing, biomechanical engineering and biotechnology, etc. The papers published in this issue are selected from this Conference, which witness the advances in biomedical engineering and biotechnology during 2014-2015.

Developing research competencies through a project-based tissue-engineering module in the biomedical engineering undergraduate curriculum.

PubMed

Wallen, M; Pandit, A

2009-05-01

In addressing the task of developing an undergraduate module in the field of tissue engineering, the greatest challenge lies in managing to capture what is a growing and rapidly changing field. Acknowledging the call for the development of greater critical thinking and interpersonal skills among the next generation of engineers as well as encouraging students to engage actively with the dynamic nature of research in the field, the module was developed to include both project-based and cooperative-learning experiences. These learning activities include developing hypotheses for the application of newly introduced laboratory procedures, a collaborative mock grant submission, and debates on ethical issues in which students are assigned roles as various stakeholders. Feedback from module evaluations has indicated that, while students find the expectations challenging, they are able to gain an advanced insight into a dynamic field. More importantly, students develop research competencies by engaging in activities that require them to link current research directions with their own development of hypotheses for future tissue-engineering applications.

BioMEMS and Lab-on-a-Chip Course Education at West Virginia University

PubMed Central

Liu, Yuxin

2011-01-01

With the rapid growth of Biological/Biomedical MicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) and microfluidic-based lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technology to biological and biomedical research and applications, demands for educated and trained researchers and technicians in these fields are rapidly expanding. Universities are expected to develop educational plans to address these specialized needs in BioMEMS, microfluidic and LOC science and technology. A course entitled BioMEMS and Lab-on-a-Chip was taught recently at the senior undergraduate and graduate levels in the Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at West Virginia University (WVU). The course focused on the basic principles and applications of BioMEMS and LOC technology to the areas of biomedicine, biology, and biotechnology. The course was well received and the enrolled students had diverse backgrounds in electrical engineering, material science, biology, mechanical engineering, and chemistry. Student feedback and a review of the course evaluations indicated that the course was effective in achieving its objectives. Student presentations at the end of the course were a highlight and a valuable experience for all involved. The course proved successful and will continue to be offered regularly. This paper provides an overview of the course as well as some development and future improvements. PMID:25586697

Use of activity theory-based need finding for biomedical device development.

PubMed

Rismani, Shalaleh; Ratto, Matt; Machiel Van der Loos, H F

2016-08-01

Identifying the appropriate needs for biomedical device design is challenging, especially for less structured environments. The paper proposes an alternate need-finding method based on Cultural Historical Activity Theory and expanded to explicitly examine the role of devices within a socioeconomic system. This is compared to a conventional need-finding technique in a preliminary study with engineering student teams. The initial results show that the Activity Theory-based technique allows teams to gain deeper insights into their needs space.

Software for biomedical engineering signal processing laboratory experiments.

PubMed

Tompkins, Willis J; Wilson, J

2009-01-01

In the early 1990's we developed a special computer program called UW DigiScope to provide a mechanism for anyone interested in biomedical digital signal processing to study the field without requiring any other instrument except a personal computer. There are many digital filtering and pattern recognition algorithms used in processing biomedical signals. In general, students have very limited opportunity to have hands-on access to the mechanisms of digital signal processing. In a typical course, the filters are designed non-interactively, which does not provide the student with significant understanding of the design constraints of such filters nor their actual performance characteristics. UW DigiScope 3.0 is the first major update since version 2.0 was released in 1994. This paper provides details on how the new version based on MATLAB! works with signals, including the filter design tool that is the programming interface between UW DigiScope and processing algorithms.

Building a more diverse biomedical engineering workforce: Biomedical engineering at the university of the district of Columbia, a historically black college & university.

PubMed

Thompson, Lara A; Adebayo, A Segun; Nian Zhang; Haghani, Sasan; Dowell, Kathleen; Shetty, Devdas

2016-08-01

Biomedical Engineering (BME) is a new, multidisciplinary, and rapidly growing field, however, the BME Workforce suffers from limited ethnic and gender diversity. Despite the demand and growth of this new field due to its public health importance, only 4 out of the 107 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) nationwide offers a Bachelor's of Science (B.S.) in Bio-Engineering related fields. In order to contribute to a growing BME Workforce, HBCUs need to react and offer more degree-programs relevant to BME. At the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), an HBCU and the District's only public institution for higher learning, we have recently established a new, degree program: Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering (B.S. in BME) full-board approved in Fall 2014, with program activities initiated in Fall 2015. The educational goal of this program is to enhance the quality and diversity of the BME Workforce via student professional development, new and relevant BME courses, and BME scholarly activities (e.g., guest lectures and journal club sessions), ultimately to increase the number of ethnic minorities pursuing careers and degrees in BME. Through our program activities, we are aiming to meet the nation's demand to contribute to a diverse BME workforce, directed towards solving problems in human health. A secondary, but related goal, is to increase the diversity of STEM-related fields. This paper summarizes our initial, but encouraging, BME activity-related findings. However, this study will be longitudinal (on a multiple year time period) to observe the true outcomes of our initiative.

Biomedical Engineering | Classification | College of Engineering & Applied

Science.gov Websites

Engineering, Biomedical Engineering(414) 229-6614wjchang@uwm.eduEng & Math Sciences 1113 profile photo Malkoc, Ph.D.Visiting Assistant ProfessorBiomedical Engineering414-229-6919malkoc@uwm.eduEng & Math Engineering / Electrical Engineering(414) 229-3327misra@uwm.eduEng & Math Sciences E-314 profile photo

Medical Device Plug-and-Play Interoperability Standards & Technology Leadership

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-10-01

official Department of the Army position, policy or decision unless so designated by other documentation. REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE Form Approved...biomedical engineering students completed their senior design project on the X-Ray / Ventilator Use Case. We worked closely with the students to...Supporting Medical Device Adverse Event Analysis in an Interoperable Clinical Environment: Design of a Data Logging and Playback System,” Publication in

Race Unknown

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gray, Katti

2011-01-01

Bryan Lee, a senior at the University of California, Irvine, has noticed that some of his classmates adamantly declare their multiracial heritage while others choose not to identify themselves as being any particular ethnicity. The half-Korean, half-White biomedical engineering major is co-president of the university's Mixed Students Organization…

Team-Based Development of Medical Devices: An Engineering-Business Collaborative.

PubMed

Eberhardt, Alan W; Johnson, Ophelia L; Kirkland, William B; Dobbs, Joel H; Moradi, Lee G

2016-07-01

There is a global shift in the teaching methodology of science and engineering toward multidisciplinary, team-based processes. To meet the demands of an evolving technical industry and lead the way in engineering education, innovative curricula are essential. This paper describes the development of multidisciplinary, team-based learning environments in undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula focused on medical device design. In these programs, students actively collaborate with clinicians, professional engineers, business professionals, and their peers to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems. In the undergraduate senior capstone courses, teams of biomedical engineering (BME) and business students have produced and delivered numerous functional prototypes to satisfied clients. Pursuit of commercialization of devices has led to intellectual property (IP) disclosures and patents. Assessments have indicated high levels of success in attainment of student learning outcomes and student satisfaction with their undergraduate design experience. To advance these projects toward commercialization and further promote innovative team-based learning, a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Design and Commercialization was recently launched. The MEng facilitates teams of graduate students in engineering, life sciences, and business who engage in innovation-commercialization (IC) projects and coursework that take innovative ideas through research and development (R&D) to create marketable devices. The activities are structured with students working together as a "virtual company," with targeted outcomes of commercialization (license agreements and new start-ups), competitive job placement, and/or career advancement.

From the foundation act to the corporate culture of a BME teaching institute.

PubMed

Augustyniak, Ewa; Augustyniak, Piotr

2010-01-01

This paper describes the concept and application of the organizational culture of a BME teaching institute, based on the specificity of biomedical engineering. Selected values and behavioral patterns typical for this profession were endorsed to reinforce the mutual cooperation and understanding of students, university staff and employers as partners in the educational process. Besides of building a professional pride and reputation of the teaching institute, the corporate culture is proved to be useful in imposing of the attitudes required in future career of the biomedical engineer as a partner of a medic in his efforts aimed at the wellness and safety of the patient. Five years since the foundation of the Multidisciplinary School of engineering In Biomedicine we still do not have a quantitative measure of the educational outcome quality, nevertheless the presented idea may be very useful and worth sharing with all BME educators.

The pipeline still leaks and more than you think: a status report on gender diversity in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Chesler, Naomi C; Barabino, Gilda; Bhatia, Sangeeta N; Richards-Kortum, Rebecca

2010-05-01

While the percentage of women in biomedical engineering is higher than in many other technical fields, it is far from being in proportion to the US population. The decrease in the proportion of women and underrepresented minorities in biomedical engineering from the bachelors to the masters to the doctoral levels is evidence of a still leaky pipeline in our discipline. In addition, the percentage of women faculty members at the assistant, associate and full professor levels remain disappointingly low even after years of improved recruitment of women into biomedical engineering at the undergraduate level. Worse, the percentage of women graduating with undergraduate degrees in biomedical engineering has been decreasing nationwide for the most recent three year span for which national data are available. Increasing diversity in biomedical engineering is predicted to have significant research and educational benefits. The barriers to women's success in biomedical engineering and strategies for overcoming these obstacles-and fixing the leaks in the pipeline-are reviewed.

The Development of Adaptive Expertise in Biotransport

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Taylor; Petrosino, Anthony J.; Rivale, Stephanie; Diller, Kenneth R.

2006-01-01

This chapter describes a model for continuous development of adaptive expertise, including growth along the dimensions of innovation and knowledge, examined in the context of a biotransport course in biomedical engineering. Students improved on both knowledge and innovation, moving along a continuum toward adaptive expertise. (Contains 5 figures.)

Professional Identification for Biomedical Engineers

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Long, Francis M.

1973-01-01

Discusses four methods of professional identification in biomedical engineering including registration, certification, accreditation, and possible membership qualification of the societies. Indicates that the destiny of the biomedical engineer may be under the control of a new profession, neither the medical nor the engineering. (CC)

Engineering β-sheet peptide assemblies for biomedical applications.

PubMed

Yu, Zhiqiang; Cai, Zheng; Chen, Qiling; Liu, Menghua; Ye, Ling; Ren, Jiaoyan; Liao, Wenzhen; Liu, Shuwen

2016-03-01

Hydrogels have been widely studied in various biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering, cell culture, immunotherapy and vaccines, and drug delivery. Peptide-based nanofibers represent a promising new strategy for current drug delivery approaches and cell carriers for tissue engineering. This review focuses on the recent advances in the use of self-assembling engineered β-sheet peptide assemblies for biomedical applications. The applications of peptide nanofibers in biomedical fields, such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, immunotherapy, and vaccines, are highlighted. The current challenges and future perspectives for self-assembling peptide nanofibers in biomedical applications are discussed.

Advances in biomedical engineering and biotechnology during 2013-2014.

PubMed

Liu, Feng; Wang, Ying; Burkhart, Timothy A; González Penedo, Manuel Francisco; Ma, Shaodong

2014-01-01

The 3rd International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (iCBEB 2014), held in Beijing from the 25th to the 28th of September 2014, is an annual conference that intends to provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners around the world to present the most recent advances and future challenges in the fields of biomedical engineering, biomaterials, bioinformatics and computational biology, biomedical imaging and signal processing, biomechanical engineering and biotechnology, amongst others. The papers published in this issue are selected from this conference, which witnesses the advances in biomedical engineering and biotechnology during 2013-2014.

Considering Student Voices: Examining the Experiences of Underrepresented Students in Intervention Programs.

PubMed

Gibau, Gina Sanchez

2015-01-01

Qualitative studies that examine the experiences of underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are comparatively few. This study explores the self-reported experiences of underrepresented graduate students in the biomedical sciences of a large, midwestern, urban university. Document analysis of interview transcripts from program evaluations capture firsthand accounts of student experiences and reveal the need for a critical examination of current intervention programs designed to reverse the trend of underrepresentation in the biomedical sciences. Findings point to themes aligned around the benefits and challenges of program components, issues of social adjustment, the utility of supportive relationships, and environmental impacts. © 2015 G. S. Gibau. CBE—Life Sciences Education © 2015 The American Society for Cell Biology. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). It is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0).

Ethical considerations for biomedical scientists and engineers: issues for the rank and file.

PubMed

Kwarteng, K B

2000-01-01

Biomedical science and engineering is inextricably linked with the fields of medicine and surgery. Yet, while physicians and surgeons, nurses, and other medical professionals receive instruction in ethics during their training and must abide by certain codes of ethics during their practice, those engaged in biomedical science and engineering typically receive no formal training in ethics. In fact, the little contact that many biomedical science and engineering professionals have with ethics occurs either when they participate in government-funded research or submit articles for publication in certain journals. Thus, there is a need for biomedical scientists and engineers as a group to become more aware of ethics. Moreover, recent advances in biomedical technology and the ever-increasing use of new devices virtually guarantee that biomedical science and engineering will become even more important in the future. Although they are rarely in direct contact with patients, biomedical scientists and engineers must become aware of ethics in order to be able to deal with the complex ethical issues that arise from our society's increasing reliance on biomedical technology. In this brief communication, the need for ethical awareness among workers in biomedical science and engineering is discussed in terms of certain conflicts that arise in the workaday world of the biomedical scientist in a complex, modern society. It is also recognized that inasmuch as workers in the many branches of bioengineering are not regulated like their counterparts in medicine and surgery, perhaps academic institutions and professional societies are best equipped to heighten ethical awareness among workers in this important field.

Development of instruction in hospital electrical safety for medical education.

PubMed

Yoo, J H; Broderick, W A

1978-01-01

Although hospital electrical safety is receiving increased attention in the literature of engineers, it is not, at present, reflected in the curricula of medical schools. A possible reason for this omission is that biomedical and/or clinical engineers knowledgeable in electrical safety are not usually trained to teach. One remedy for this problem is to combine the knowledge of engineers with that of instructional developers to design a systematic curriculum for a course in hospital electrical safety. This paper describes such an effort at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA). A biomedical engineer and an instructional developer designed an instructional module in hospital electrical safety; the engineer taught the module, and both evaluated the results. The process and outcome of their collaboration are described. This model was effectively applied in the classroom as a four-hour segment in hospital electrical safety for first-year medical students at UTHSCSA. It is hoped that an additional benefit of this system will be that it offers an opportunity for continuing improvement in this kind of instruction at other medical schools and hospitals.

Considerations of education in the field of biophotonics in engineering: the experience of the subject fundamentals of biophotonics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fanjul-Vélez, F.; Arce-Diego, J. L.

2017-12-01

Education in the field of photonics is usually somehow complex due to the fact that most of the programs include just a few subjects on the field, apart from specific Master programs in Photonics. There are also specific doctorate programs dealing with photonics. Apart from the problems shared with photonics in education in general, biophotonics specifically needs an interdisciplinary approach between biomedical and technical or scientific fields. In this work, we present our education experience in teaching the subject Fundamentals of Biophotonics, intended preferentially to engineering Bachelor and Master degrees students, but also to science and medicine students. First it was necessary to join a teaching group coming from the scientific technical and medical fields, working together in the subject. This task was easier as our research group, the Applied Optical Techniques group, had previous contacts and experience in working with medicine professors and medical doctors at hospitals. The orientation of the subject, intended for both technical and medical students, has to be carefully selected. All this information could be employed by other education institutions willing to implement studies on biomedical optics.

Team-Based Development of Medical Devices: An Engineering–Business Collaborative

PubMed Central

Eberhardt, Alan W.; Johnson, Ophelia L.; Kirkland, William B.; Dobbs, Joel H.; Moradi, Lee G.

2016-01-01

There is a global shift in the teaching methodology of science and engineering toward multidisciplinary, team-based processes. To meet the demands of an evolving technical industry and lead the way in engineering education, innovative curricula are essential. This paper describes the development of multidisciplinary, team-based learning environments in undergraduate and graduate engineering curricula focused on medical device design. In these programs, students actively collaborate with clinicians, professional engineers, business professionals, and their peers to develop innovative solutions to real-world problems. In the undergraduate senior capstone courses, teams of biomedical engineering (BME) and business students have produced and delivered numerous functional prototypes to satisfied clients. Pursuit of commercialization of devices has led to intellectual property (IP) disclosures and patents. Assessments have indicated high levels of success in attainment of student learning outcomes and student satisfaction with their undergraduate design experience. To advance these projects toward commercialization and further promote innovative team-based learning, a Master of Engineering (MEng) in Design and Commercialization was recently launched. The MEng facilitates teams of graduate students in engineering, life sciences, and business who engage in innovation-commercialization (IC) projects and coursework that take innovative ideas through research and development (R&D) to create marketable devices. The activities are structured with students working together as a “virtual company,” with targeted outcomes of commercialization (license agreements and new start-ups), competitive job placement, and/or career advancement. PMID:26902869

Biomedical Engineering in Modern Society

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Attinger, E. O.

1971-01-01

Considers definition of biomedical engineering (BME) and how biomedical engineers should be trained. State of the art descriptions of BME and BME education are followed by a brief look at the future of BME. (TS)

Turning the Corner

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooper, Kenneth J.

2012-01-01

Stacyann Morgan got into biomedical engineering through a simple Google search. She got through an undergraduate program in the emerging field thanks to a federally-funded program that provided multi-layered support to Black and Latino students at City College of New York. Starting in 2001, the National Institutes of Health funded the Minority…

Biotechnology Apprenticeship for Secondary-Level Students: Teaching Advanced Cell Culture Techniques for Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lewis, Jennifer R.; Kotur, Mark S.; Butt, Omar; Kulcarni, Sumant; Riley, Alyssa A.; Ferrell, Nick; Sullivan, Kathryn D.; Ferrari, Mauro

2002-01-01

Discusses small-group apprenticeships (SGAs) as a method for introducing cell culture techniques to high school participants. Teaches cell culture practices and introduces advance imaging techniques to solve various biomedical engineering problems. Clarifies and illuminates the value of small-group laboratory apprenticeships. (Author/KHR)

An Introduction to Tissue Engineering Using Hydrogels

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ballyns, Jeffrey J.; Doran, Robert F.; Archer, Shivaun D.; Bonassar, Lawrence J.

2011-01-01

Biotechnology has often been a favorite topic in popular culture. While this has provided students with some introduction to the futuristic potential of biotechnology and biomedical sciences, it does not often translate to activities that will excite and stimulate them academically. In this article, the authors present a three-part classroom…

Problem-based learning biotechnology courses in chemical engineering.

PubMed

Glatz, Charles E; Gonzalez, Ramon; Huba, Mary E; Mallapragada, Surya K; Narasimhan, Balaji; Reilly, Peter J; Saunders, Kevin P; Shanks, Jacqueline V

2006-01-01

We have developed a series of upper undergraduate/graduate lecture and laboratory courses on biotechnological topics to supplement existing biochemical engineering, bioseparations, and biomedical engineering lecture courses. The laboratory courses are based on problem-based learning techniques, featuring two- and three-person teams, journaling, and performance rubrics for guidance and assessment. Participants initially have found them to be difficult, since they had little experience with problem-based learning. To increase enrollment, we are combining the laboratory courses into 2-credit groupings and allowing students to substitute one of them for the second of our 2-credit chemical engineering unit operations laboratory courses.

Frontiers in biomedical engineering and biotechnology.

PubMed

Liu, Feng; Goodarzi, Ali; Wang, Haifeng; Stasiak, Joanna; Sun, Jianbo; Zhou, Yu

2014-01-01

The 2nd International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (iCBEB 2013), held in Wuhan on 11–13 October 2013, is an annual conference that aims at providing an opportunity for international and national researchers and practitioners to present the most recent advances and future challenges in the fields of Biomedical Information, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology. The papers published by this issue are selected from this conference, which witnesses the frontier in the field of Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, which particularly has helped improving the level of clinical diagnosis in medical work.

Are we studying what matters? Health priorities and NIH-funded biomedical engineering research.

PubMed

Rubin, Jessica B; Paltiel, A David; Saltzman, W Mark

2010-07-01

With the founding of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) in 1999, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) made explicit its dedication to expanding research in biomedical engineering. Ten years later, we sought to examine how closely federal funding for biomedical engineering aligns with U.S. health priorities. Using a publicly accessible database of research projects funded by the NIH in 2008, we identified 641 grants focused on biomedical engineering, 48% of which targeted specific diseases. Overall, we found that these disease-specific NIH-funded biomedical engineering research projects align with national health priorities, as quantified by three commonly utilized measures of disease burden: cause of death, disability-adjusted survival losses, and expenditures. However, we also found some illnesses (e.g., cancer and heart disease) for which the number of research projects funded deviated from our expectations, given their disease burden. Our findings suggest several possibilities for future studies that would serve to further inform the allocation of limited research dollars within the field of biomedical engineering.

Biomedical engineering for health research and development.

PubMed

Zhang, X-Y

2015-01-01

Biomedical engineering is a new area of research in medicine and biology, providing new concepts and designs for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of various diseases. There are several types of biomedical engineering, such as tissue, genetic, neural and stem cells, as well as chemical and clinical engineering for health care. Many electronic and magnetic methods and equipments are used for the biomedical engineering such as Computed Tomography (CT) scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, Electroencephalography (EEG), Ultrasound and regenerative medicine and stem cell cultures, preparations of artificial cells and organs, such as pancreas, urinary bladders, liver cells, and fibroblasts cells of foreskin and others. The principle of tissue engineering is described with various types of cells used for tissue engineering purposes. The use of several medical devices and bionics are mentioned with scaffold, cells and tissue cultures and various materials are used for biomedical engineering. The use of biomedical engineering methods is very important for the human health, and research and development of diseases. The bioreactors and preparations of artificial cells or tissues and organs are described here.

[Biomedical engineering today : An overview from the viewpoint of the German Biomedical Engineering Society].

PubMed

Schlötelburg, C; Becks, T; Stieglitz, T

2010-08-01

Biomedical engineering is characterized by the interdisciplinary co-operation of technology, science, and ways of thinking, probably more than any other technological area. The close interaction of engineering and information sciences with medicine and biology results in innovative products and methods, but also requires high standards for the interdisciplinary transfer of ideas into products for patients' benefits. This article describes the situation of biomedical engineering in Germany. It displays characteristics of the medical device industry and ranks it with respect to the international market. The research landscape is described as well as up-to-date research topics and trends. The national funding situation of research in biomedical engineering is reviewed and existing innovation barriers are discussed.

Biomedical Impact in Implantable Devices-The Transcatheter Aortic Valve as an example

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Anastasiou, Alexandros; Saatsakis, George

2015-09-01

Objective: To update of the scientific community about the biomedical engineering involvement in the implantable devices chain. Moreover the transcatheter Aortic Valve (TAV) replacement, in the field of cardiac surgery, will be analyzed as an example of contemporary implantable technology. Methods: A detailed literature review regarding biomedical engineers participating in the implantable medical product chain, starting from the design of the product till the final implantation technique. Results: The scientific role of biomedical engineers has clearly been established. Certain parts of the product chain are implemented almost exclusively by experienced biomedical engineers such as the transcatheter aortic valve device. The successful professional should have a multidisciplinary knowledge, including medicine, in order to pursue the challenges for such intuitive technology. This clearly indicates that biomedical engineers are among the most appropriate scientists to accomplish such tasks. Conclusions: The biomedical engineering involvement in medical implantable devices has been widely accepted by the scientific community, worldwide. Its important contribution, starting from the design and extended to the development, clinical trials, scientific support, education of other scientists (surgeons, cardiologists, technicians etc.), and even to sales, makes biomedical engineers a valuable player in the scientific arena. Notably, the sector of implantable devices is constantly raising, as emerging technologies continuously set up new targets.

University of Wyoming, College of Engineering, undergraduate design projects to aid Wyoming persons with disabilities.

PubMed

Barrett, Steven F; Laurin, Kathy M; Bloom, Janet K Chidester

2003-01-01

In Spring 2002 the University of Wyoming received NSF funding from the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems to provide a meaningful design experience for University of Wyoming, College of Engineering students that will directly aid individuals with disabilities within the state of Wyoming. Other universities have participated in this very worthwhile program [1, 2, 3]. To achieve the program purpose, the following objectives were established: Provide engineering students multi-disciplinary, meaningful, community service design projects, Provide persons with disabilities assistive devices to empower them to achieve the maximum individual growth and development and afford them the opportunity to participate in all aspects of life as they choose, Provide engineering students education and awareness on the special needs and challenges of persons with disabilities, and Provide undergraduate engineering students exposure to the biomedical field of engineering. To accomplish these objectives the College of Engineering partnered with three organizations that provide education and service related to disability. Specifically, the college has joined with the Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND) assistive technology program, Wyoming New Options in Technology (WYNOT) and their Sports and Outdoor Assistive Recreation (SOAR) project along with the university's Special Education program. In this paper we will describe how the program was created, developed, and its current status.

Biotechnology Apprenticeship for Secondary-Level Students: Teaching Advanced Cell Culture Techniques for Research

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lewis, Jennifer R.; Kotur, Mark S.; Butt, Omar; Kulcarni, Sumant; Riley, Alyssa A.; Ferrell, Nick; Sullivan, Kathryn D.; Ferrari, Mauro

2002-01-01

The purpose of this article is to discuss "small-group apprenticeships (SGAs)" as a method to instruct cell culture techniques to high school participants. The study aimed to teach cell culture practices and to introduce advanced imaging techniques to solve various biomedical engineering problems. Participants designed and completed experiments…

Open Biomedical Engineering education in Africa.

PubMed

Ahluwalia, Arti; Atwine, Daniel; De Maria, Carmelo; Ibingira, Charles; Kipkorir, Emmauel; Kiros, Fasil; Madete, June; Mazzei, Daniele; Molyneux, Elisabeth; Moonga, Kando; Moshi, Mainen; Nzomo, Martin; Oduol, Vitalice; Okuonzi, John

2015-08-01

Despite the virtual revolution, the mainstream academic community in most countries remains largely ignorant of the potential of web-based teaching resources and of the expansion of open source software, hardware and rapid prototyping. In the context of Biomedical Engineering (BME), where human safety and wellbeing is paramount, a high level of supervision and quality control is required before open source concepts can be embraced by universities and integrated into the curriculum. In the meantime, students, more than their teachers, have become attuned to continuous streams of digital information, and teaching methods need to adapt rapidly by giving them the skills to filter meaningful information and by supporting collaboration and co-construction of knowledge using open, cloud and crowd based technology. In this paper we present our experience in bringing these concepts to university education in Africa, as a way of enabling rapid development and self-sufficiency in health care. We describe the three summer schools held in sub-Saharan Africa where both students and teachers embraced the philosophy of open BME education with enthusiasm, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of opening education in this way in the developing and developed world.

International Conference on Bio-Medical Instrumentation and related Engineering and Physical Sciences (BIOMEP 2015)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

2015-09-01

The International Conference on Bio-Medical Instrumentation and related Engineering and Physical Sciences (BIOMEP 2015) took place in the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens, Greece on June 18-20, 2015 and was organized by the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The scope of the conference was to provide a forum on the latest developments in Biomedical Instrumentation and related principles of Physical and Engineering sciences. Scientists and engineers from academic, industrial and health disciplines were invited to participate in the Conference and to contribute both in the promotion and dissemination of the scientific knowledge.

Biomedical Engineering curriculum at UAM-I: a critical review.

PubMed

Martinez Licona, Fabiola; Azpiroz-Leehan, Joaquin; Urbina Medal, E Gerardo; Cadena Mendez, Miguel

2014-01-01

The Biomedical Engineering (BME) curriculum at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) has undergone at least four major transformations since the founding of the BME undergraduate program in 1974. This work is a critical assessment of the curriculum from the point of view of its results as derived from an analysis of, among other resources, institutional databases on students, graduates and their academic performance. The results of the evaluation can help us define admission policies as well as reasonable limits on the maximum duration of undergraduate studies. Other results linked to the faculty composition and the social environment can be used to define a methodology for the evaluation of teaching and the implementation of mentoring and tutoring programs. Changes resulting from this evaluation may be the only way to assure and maintain leadership and recognition from the BME community.

New Directions for Biomedical Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plonsey, Robert

1973-01-01

Discusses the definition of "biomedical engineering" and the development of educational programs in the field. Includes detailed descriptions of the roles of bioengineers, medical engineers, and chemical engineers. (CC)

BIOMedical Search Engine Framework: Lightweight and customized implementation of domain-specific biomedical search engines.

PubMed

Jácome, Alberto G; Fdez-Riverola, Florentino; Lourenço, Anália

2016-07-01

Text mining and semantic analysis approaches can be applied to the construction of biomedical domain-specific search engines and provide an attractive alternative to create personalized and enhanced search experiences. Therefore, this work introduces the new open-source BIOMedical Search Engine Framework for the fast and lightweight development of domain-specific search engines. The rationale behind this framework is to incorporate core features typically available in search engine frameworks with flexible and extensible technologies to retrieve biomedical documents, annotate meaningful domain concepts, and develop highly customized Web search interfaces. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework integrates taggers for major biomedical concepts, such as diseases, drugs, genes, proteins, compounds and organisms, and enables the use of domain-specific controlled vocabulary. Technologies from the Typesafe Reactive Platform, the AngularJS JavaScript framework and the Bootstrap HTML/CSS framework support the customization of the domain-oriented search application. Moreover, the RESTful API of the BIOMedical Search Engine Framework allows the integration of the search engine into existing systems or a complete web interface personalization. The construction of the Smart Drug Search is described as proof-of-concept of the BIOMedical Search Engine Framework. This public search engine catalogs scientific literature about antimicrobial resistance, microbial virulence and topics alike. The keyword-based queries of the users are transformed into concepts and search results are presented and ranked accordingly. The semantic graph view portraits all the concepts found in the results, and the researcher may look into the relevance of different concepts, the strength of direct relations, and non-trivial, indirect relations. The number of occurrences of the concept shows its importance to the query, and the frequency of concept co-occurrence is indicative of biological relations meaningful to that particular scope of research. Conversely, indirect concept associations, i.e. concepts related by other intermediary concepts, can be useful to integrate information from different studies and look into non-trivial relations. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework supports the development of domain-specific search engines. The key strengths of the framework are modularity and extensibilityin terms of software design, the use of open-source consolidated Web technologies, and the ability to integrate any number of biomedical text mining tools and information resources. Currently, the Smart Drug Search keeps over 1,186,000 documents, containing more than 11,854,000 annotations for 77,200 different concepts. The Smart Drug Search is publicly accessible at http://sing.ei.uvigo.es/sds/. The BIOMedical Search Engine Framework is freely available for non-commercial use at https://github.com/agjacome/biomsef. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Biomedical engineering continues to make the future.

PubMed

Fantini, Sergio; Bennis, Caoimhe; Kaplan, David

2011-01-01

Biomedical engineering (BME) continues to make the future, not just respond to the present, by anticipating the needs of interface engineering and clinical medicine. In many respects, BME is the educational mode of the future, fostering collaboration among disciplines at its core by building on basic concepts in engineering and biology. We strive to educate where the needs, opportunities, and jobs are and will be in the future. The bridge between engineering, biology, and medicine is a growing link, and there is no sign that this interface will slow. With an aging population, dynamic changes in health care, as well as global economies and related themes upon us, we are only at the very beginning of the impact that BME will have on medicine and the quality of life. Those of us in BME are excited to be setting this agenda and welcome your participation. In part, this is why we have designed our BME major to cover both the depth and breadth, always a challenge, but one that we are committed to. The depth of the design projects, research experience, coursework, study abroad options, and internships all convenes to establish a solid foundation for our students as they embark on their career paths.

Review of spectral imaging technology in biomedical engineering: achievements and challenges.

PubMed

Li, Qingli; He, Xiaofu; Wang, Yiting; Liu, Hongying; Xu, Dongrong; Guo, Fangmin

2013-10-01

Spectral imaging is a technology that integrates conventional imaging and spectroscopy to get both spatial and spectral information from an object. Although this technology was originally developed for remote sensing, it has been extended to the biomedical engineering field as a powerful analytical tool for biological and biomedical research. This review introduces the basics of spectral imaging, imaging methods, current equipment, and recent advances in biomedical applications. The performance and analytical capabilities of spectral imaging systems for biological and biomedical imaging are discussed. In particular, the current achievements and limitations of this technology in biomedical engineering are presented. The benefits and development trends of biomedical spectral imaging are highlighted to provide the reader with an insight into the current technological advances and its potential for biomedical research.

How can we improve Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education to encourage careers in Biomedical and Pathology Informatics?

PubMed

Uppal, Rahul; Mandava, Gunasheil; Romagnoli, Katrina M; King, Andrew J; Draper, Amie J; Handen, Adam L; Fisher, Arielle M; Becich, Michael J; Dutta-Moscato, Joyeeta

2016-01-01

The Computer Science, Biology, and Biomedical Informatics (CoSBBI) program was initiated in 2011 to expose the critical role of informatics in biomedicine to talented high school students.[1] By involving them in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) training at the high school level and providing mentorship and research opportunities throughout the formative years of their education, CoSBBI creates a research infrastructure designed to develop young informaticians. Our central premise is that the trajectory necessary to be an expert in the emerging fields of biomedical informatics and pathology informatics requires accelerated learning at an early age.In our 4(th) year of CoSBBI as a part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) Academy (http://www.upci.upmc.edu/summeracademy/), and our 2nd year of CoSBBI as an independent informatics-based academy, we enhanced our classroom curriculum, added hands-on computer science instruction, and expanded research projects to include clinical informatics. We also conducted a qualitative evaluation of the program to identify areas that need improvement in order to achieve our goal of creating a pipeline of exceptionally well-trained applicants for both the disciplines of pathology informatics and biomedical informatics in the era of big data and personalized medicine.

The AIBS In Yugoslavia: Programs in Biomedical Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Mary-Frances

1978-01-01

Programs in biomedical engineering have been developing worldwide since World War II. This article describes a multidisciplinary program which operates in Yugoslavia through a cooperative effort between that county and the AIBS. A major problem has been the slowness with which hospitals accept the concept of biomedical engineering. (MA)

76 FR 66735 - Announcement of Requirements and Registration for the NIBIB DEsign by Biomedical Undergraduate...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-10-27

...., implants, biomaterials, surgical tools, tissue engineering, drug and gene delivery; (c) Technology to Aid... health information, and other programs with respect to biomedical imaging and engineering and associated... ceremony: October 2012, Biomedical Engineering Society Conference (exact date to be determined). FOR...

78 FR 5469 - Announcement of Requirements and Registration for the 2013 NIBIB DEsign by Biomedical...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-25

... tools, tissue engineering, drug and gene delivery (c) Technology to Aid Underserved Populations and... and engineering and associated technologies and modalities with biomedical applications; and (3) to...: September 2013, Biomedical Engineering Society Conference (exact date to be announced at http://debut2013...

Challenges and Opportunities: Building a Relationship Between a Department of Biomedical Engineering and a Medical School.

PubMed

George, Steven C; Meyerand, M Elizabeth

2017-03-01

A department of biomedical engineering can significantly enhance the impact of their research and training programs if a productive relationship with a medical school can be established. In order to develop such a relationship, significant hurdles must be overcome. This editorial summarizes some of the major challenges and opportunities for a department of biomedical engineering as they seek to build or enhance a relationship with a medical school. The ideas were formulated by engaging the collective wisdom from the Council of Chairs of the biomedical engineering departments.

Special Issue: 3D Printing for Biomedical Engineering.

PubMed

Chua, Chee Kai; Yeong, Wai Yee; An, Jia

2017-02-28

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has a long history of applications in biomedical engineering. The development and expansion of traditional biomedical applications are being advanced and enriched by new printing technologies. New biomedical applications such as bioprinting are highly attractive and trendy. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with a glimpse of the recent profile of 3D printing in biomedical research.

A Case Study on a Capsule Robot in the Gastrointestinal Tract to Teach Robot Programming and Navigation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guo, Yi; Zhang, Shubo; Ritter, Arthur; Man, Hong

2014-01-01

Despite the increasing importance of robotics, there is a significant challenge involved in teaching this to undergraduate students in biomedical engineering (BME) and other related disciplines in which robotics techniques could be readily applied. This paper addresses this challenge through the development and pilot testing of a bio-microrobotics…

Special Issue: 3D Printing for Biomedical Engineering

PubMed Central

Chua, Chee Kai; Yeong, Wai Yee; An, Jia

2017-01-01

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has a long history of applications in biomedical engineering. The development and expansion of traditional biomedical applications are being advanced and enriched by new printing technologies. New biomedical applications such as bioprinting are highly attractive and trendy. This Special Issue aims to provide readers with a glimpse of the recent profile of 3D printing in biomedical research. PMID:28772604

Biomedical engineering education--status and perspectives.

PubMed

Magjarevic, Ratko; Zequera Diaz, Martha L

2014-01-01

Biomedical Engineering programs are present at a large number of universities all over the world with an increasing trend. New generations of biomedical engineers have to face the challenges of health care systems round the world which need a large number of professionals not only to support the present technology in the health care system but to develop new devices and services. Health care stakeholders would like to have innovative solutions directed towards solving problems of the world growing incidence of chronic disease and ageing population. These new solutions have to meet the requirements for continuous monitoring, support or care outside clinical settlements. Presence of these needs can be tracked through data from the Labor Organization in the U.S. showing that biomedical engineering jobs have the largest growth at the engineering labor market with expected 72% growth rate in the period from 2008-2018. In European Union the number of patents (i.e. innovation) is the highest in the category of biomedical technology. Biomedical engineering curricula have to adopt to the new needs and for expectations of the future. In this paper we want to give an overview of engineering professions in related to engineering in medicine and biology and the current status of BME education in some regions, as a base for further discussions.

Evolving technologies drive the new roles of Biomedical Engineering.

PubMed

Frisch, P H; St Germain, J; Lui, W

2008-01-01

Rapidly changing technology coupled with the financial impact of organized health care, has required hospital Biomedical Engineering organizations to augment their traditional operational and business models to increase their role in developing enhanced clinical applications utilizing new and evolving technologies. The deployment of these technology based applications has required Biomedical Engineering organizations to re-organize to optimize the manner in which they provide and manage services. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has implemented a strategy to explore evolving technologies integrating them into enhanced clinical applications while optimally utilizing the expertise of the traditional Biomedical Engineering component (Clinical Engineering) to provide expanded support in technology / equipment management, device repair, preventive maintenance and integration with legacy clinical systems. Specifically, Biomedical Engineering is an integral component of the Medical Physics Department which provides comprehensive and integrated support to the Center in advanced physical, technical and engineering technology. This organizational structure emphasizes the integration and collaboration between a spectrum of technical expertise for clinical support and equipment management roles. The high cost of clinical equipment purchases coupled with the increasing cost of service has driven equipment management responsibilities to include significant business and financial aspects to provide a cost effective service model. This case study details the dynamics of these expanded roles, future initiatives and benefits for Biomedical Engineering and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The community FabLab platform: applications and implications in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Stephenson, Makeda K; Dow, Douglas E

2014-01-01

Skill development in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education present one of the most formidable challenges of modern society. The Community FabLab platform presents a viable solution. Each FabLab contains a suite of modern computer numerical control (CNC) equipment, electronics and computing hardware and design, programming, computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided machining (CAM) software. FabLabs are community and educational resources and open to the public. Development of STEM based workforce skills such as digital fabrication and advanced manufacturing can be enhanced using this platform. Particularly notable is the potential of the FabLab platform in STEM education. The active learning environment engages and supports a diversity of learners, while the iterative learning that is supported by the FabLab rapid prototyping platform facilitates depth of understanding, creativity, innovation and mastery. The product and project based learning that occurs in FabLabs develops in the student a personal sense of accomplishment, self-awareness, command of the material and technology. This helps build the interest and confidence necessary to excel in STEM and throughout life. Finally the introduction and use of relevant technologies at every stage of the education process ensures technical familiarity and a broad knowledge base needed for work in STEM based fields. Biomedical engineering education strives to cultivate broad technical adeptness, creativity, interdisciplinary thought, and an ability to form deep conceptual understanding of complex systems. The FabLab platform is well designed to enhance biomedical engineering education.

High-Fidelity Simulation in Biomedical and Aerospace Engineering

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kwak, Dochan

2005-01-01

Contents include the following: Introduction / Background. Modeling and Simulation Challenges in Aerospace Engineering. Modeling and Simulation Challenges in Biomedical Engineering. Digital Astronaut. Project Columbia. Summary and Discussion.

A New Approach to Teaching Biomechanics Through Active, Adaptive, and Experiential Learning.

PubMed

Singh, Anita

2017-07-01

Demand of biomedical engineers continues to rise to meet the needs of healthcare industry. Current training of bioengineers follows the traditional and dominant model of theory-focused curricula. However, the unmet needs of the healthcare industry warrant newer skill sets in these engineers. Translational training strategies such as solving real world problems through active, adaptive, and experiential learning hold promise. In this paper, we report our findings of adding a real-world 4-week problem-based learning unit into a biomechanics capstone course for engineering students. Surveys assessed student perceptions of the activity and learning experience. While students, across three cohorts, felt challenged to solve a real-world problem identified during the simulation lab visit, they felt more confident in utilizing knowledge learned in the biomechanics course and self-directed research. Instructor evaluations indicated that the active and experiential learning approach fostered their technical knowledge and life-long learning skills while exposing them to the components of adaptive learning and innovation.

Environmental practices for biomedical research facilities.

PubMed Central

Medlin, E L; Grupenhoff, J T

2000-01-01

As a result of the Leadership Conference on Biomedical Research and the Environment, the Facilities Committee focused its work on the development of best environmental practices at biomedical research facilities at the university and independent research facility level as well as consideration of potential involvement of for-profit companies and government agencies. The designation "facilities" includes all related buildings and grounds, "green auditing" of buildings and programs, purchasing of furnishings and sources, energy efficiency, and engineering services (lighting, heating, air conditioning), among other activities. The committee made a number of recommendations, including development of a national council for environmental stewardship in biomedical research, development of a system of green auditing of such research facilities, and creation of programs for sustainable building and use. In addition, the committee recommended extension of education and training programs for environmental stewardship, in cooperation with facilities managers, for all research administrators and researchers. These programs would focus especially on graduate fellows and other students, as well as on science labs at levels K--12. PMID:11121360

Development of a tissue engineered heart valve for pediatrics: a case study in bioengineering ethics.

PubMed

Merryman, W David

2008-03-01

The following hypothetical case study was developed for bioengineering students and is concerned with choosing between two devices used for development of a pediatric tissue engineered heart valve (TEHV). This case is intended to elicit assessment of the devices, possible future outcomes, and ramifications of the decision making. It is framed in light of two predominant ethical theories: utilitarianism and rights of persons. After the case was presented to bioengineering graduate students, they voted on which device should be released. The results revealed that these bioengineering students preferred the more reliable (and substantially more expensive) design, though this choice precludes the majority of the world from having access to this technology. This case is intended to examine and explore where the balance lies between design, cost, and adequate distribution of biomedical devices.

The development of biomedical engineering as experienced by one biomedical engineer

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

This personal essay described the development of the field of Biomedical Engineering from its early days, from the perspective of one who lived through that development. It describes the making of a major invention using data that had been rejected by other scientists, the re-discovery of an obscure fact of physiology and its use in developing a major medical instrument, the development of a new medical imaging modality, and the near-death rescue of a research project. The essay concludes with comments about the development and present status of impedance imaging, and recent changes in the evolution of biomedical engineering as a field. PMID:23234267

The development of biomedical engineering as experienced by one biomedical engineer.

PubMed

Newell, Jonathan C

2012-12-12

This personal essay described the development of the field of Biomedical Engineering from its early days, from the perspective of one who lived through that development. It describes the making of a major invention using data that had been rejected by other scientists, the re-discovery of an obscure fact of physiology and its use in developing a major medical instrument, the development of a new medical imaging modality, and the near-death rescue of a research project. The essay concludes with comments about the development and present status of impedance imaging, and recent changes in the evolution of biomedical engineering as a field.

Industry careers for the biomedical engineer.

PubMed

Munzner, Robert F

2004-01-01

This year's conference theme is "linkages for innovation in biomedicine." Biomedical engineers, especially those transitioning their career from academic study into medical device industry, will play a critical role in converting the fruits of scientific research into the reality of modern medical devices. This special session is organized to help biomedical engineers to achieve their career goals more effectively. Participants will have opportunities to hear from and interact with leading industrial experts on many issues. These may include but not limited to 1) career paths for biomedical engineers (industrial, academic, or federal; technical vs. managerial track; small start-up or large established companies); 2) unique design challenges and regulatory requirements in medical device development; 3) aspects of a successful biomedical engineering job candidate (such as resume, interview, follow-up). Suggestions for other topics are welcome and should be directed to xkong@ieee.org The distinguished panelists include: Xuan Kong, Ph.D., VP of Research, NEUROMetrix Inc, Waltham, MA Robert F. Munzner, Ph.D., Medical Device Consultant, Doctor Device, Herndon, VA Glen McLaughlin, Ph.D., VP of Engineering and CTO, Zonare Medical System Inc., Mountain View, CA Grace Bartoo, Ph.D., RAC, General Manager, Decus Biomedical LLC San Carlos, CA.

The Institute of Biological Engineering 2013 Annual Conference

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-10-30

of Bioengineering University of Washington Presentation: Peptide-Based materials for Drug Delivery Dr. Ya-Ping Sun (Supported by the Grant) Frank...Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Duke University Presentation: Acoustic Microfluidics and New...Triangle Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Analysis of Uncertainty and Variability in Finite Element Computational Models for Biomedical Engineering: Characterization and Propagation

PubMed Central

Mangado, Nerea; Piella, Gemma; Noailly, Jérôme; Pons-Prats, Jordi; Ballester, Miguel Ángel González

2016-01-01

Computational modeling has become a powerful tool in biomedical engineering thanks to its potential to simulate coupled systems. However, real parameters are usually not accurately known, and variability is inherent in living organisms. To cope with this, probabilistic tools, statistical analysis and stochastic approaches have been used. This article aims to review the analysis of uncertainty and variability in the context of finite element modeling in biomedical engineering. Characterization techniques and propagation methods are presented, as well as examples of their applications in biomedical finite element simulations. Uncertainty propagation methods, both non-intrusive and intrusive, are described. Finally, pros and cons of the different approaches and their use in the scientific community are presented. This leads us to identify future directions for research and methodological development of uncertainty modeling in biomedical engineering. PMID:27872840

Analysis of Uncertainty and Variability in Finite Element Computational Models for Biomedical Engineering: Characterization and Propagation.

PubMed

Mangado, Nerea; Piella, Gemma; Noailly, Jérôme; Pons-Prats, Jordi; Ballester, Miguel Ángel González

2016-01-01

Computational modeling has become a powerful tool in biomedical engineering thanks to its potential to simulate coupled systems. However, real parameters are usually not accurately known, and variability is inherent in living organisms. To cope with this, probabilistic tools, statistical analysis and stochastic approaches have been used. This article aims to review the analysis of uncertainty and variability in the context of finite element modeling in biomedical engineering. Characterization techniques and propagation methods are presented, as well as examples of their applications in biomedical finite element simulations. Uncertainty propagation methods, both non-intrusive and intrusive, are described. Finally, pros and cons of the different approaches and their use in the scientific community are presented. This leads us to identify future directions for research and methodological development of uncertainty modeling in biomedical engineering.

Biomedical engineering - A means to add new dimension to medicine and research

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Doerr, D. F.

1992-01-01

Biomedical engineering is an evolving science that seeks to insert technically oriented and trained personnel to assist medical professionals in solving technological problems in the pursuit of innovations in the delivery of health care. Consequently, engineering solutions are brought to bear on problems that previously were outside the training of physicians and beyond the understanding or appreciation of the conventionally educated electrical or mechanical engineers. This physician/scientist/engineer team has a capability to extend medicine and research far beyond the capability of a single entity operating alone. How biomedical engineering has added a new dimension to medical science at the Kennedy Space Center is described.

The biomedical engineer as a driver for Health Technology innovation.

PubMed

Colas Fustero, Javier; Guillen Arredondo, Alejandra

2010-01-01

Health Technology has played a mayor role on most of the fundamental advances in medicine, in the last 30 years. Right now, beginning the XXI Century, it is well accepted that the most important revolution expected in Health Care is the empowerment of the individuals on their own health management. Innovation in health care technologies will continue being paramount, not only in the advances of medicine and in the self health management of patients but also in allowing the sustainability of the public health care becomes more important, the role of the biomedical engineer will turn to be more crucial for the society. The paper targets the development of new curricula for the Biomedical Engineers, The needs of evolving on his different fields in which the contribution of the Biomedical Engineer is becoming fundamental to drive the innovation that Health Care Technology Industry must provide to continue improving human health through cross-disciplinary activities that integrate the engineering sciences with the biomedical sciences and clinical practice.

From biomedical-engineering research to clinical application and industrialization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taguchi, Tetsushi; Aoyagi, Takao

2012-12-01

The rising costs and aging of the population due to a low birth rate negatively affect the healthcare system in Japan. In 2011, the Council for Science and Technology Policy released the 4th Japan's Science and Technology Basic Policy Report from 2011 to 2015. This report includes two major innovations, 'Life Innovation' and 'Green Innovation', to promote economic growth. Biomedical engineering research is part of 'Life Innovation' and its outcomes are required to maintain people's mental and physical health. It has already resulted in numerous biomedical products, and new ones should be developed using nanotechnology-based concepts. The combination of accumulated knowledge and experience, and 'nanoarchitechtonics' will result in novel, well-designed functional biomaterials. This focus issue contains three reviews and 19 original papers on various biomedical topics, including biomaterials, drug-delivery systems, tissue engineering and diagnostics. We hope that it demonstrates the importance of collaboration among scientists, engineers and clinicians, and will contribute to the further development of biomedical engineering.

Education Highlights: Synthetic Nanoparticles

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gambacorta, Francesca; Michalska, Martyna

Argonne intern Francesca Gambacorta from University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign worked with Argonne mentor Phil Laible and Postdoctoral mentor Martyna Michalska to study how black silicon, a synthetic nanomaterial, kills bacteria. This research will help scientists predict other applications of this material in the biomedical field. Argonne aims to develop the next generation of scientists, researchers, and engineers by mentoring over 300 undergraduate and graduate students a year from over 40 STEM majors in over 15 different career development programs. Students come from over 160 colleges and universities in 41 states and 15 countries.

Biomedical applications engineering tasks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Laenger, C. J., Sr.

1976-01-01

The engineering tasks performed in response to needs articulated by clinicians are described. Initial contacts were made with these clinician-technology requestors by the Southwest Research Institute NASA Biomedical Applications Team. The basic purpose of the program was to effectively transfer aerospace technology into functional hardware to solve real biomedical problems.

Beyond the GRE: Using a Composite Score to Predict the Success of Puerto Rican Students in a Biomedical PhD Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pacheco, Wendy I.; Noel, Richard J., Jr.; Porter, James T.; Appleyard, Caroline B.

2015-01-01

The use and validity of the Graduate Record Examination General Test (GRE) to predict the success of graduate school applicants is heavily debated, especially for its possible impact on the selection of underrepresented minorities into science, technology, engineering, and math fields. To better identify candidates who would succeed in our program…

A WEB based approach in biomedical engineering design education.

PubMed

Enderle, J D; Browne, A F; Hallowell, M B

1997-01-01

As part of the accreditation process for university engineering programs, students are required to complete a minimum number of design credits in their course of study, typically at the senior level. Many call this the capstone course. Engineering design is a course or series of courses that bring together concepts and principles that students learn in their field of study--it involves the integration and extension of material learned in their major toward a specific project. Most often, the student is exposed to system-wide analysis, critique and evaluation for the first time. Design is an iterative, decision making process in which the student optimally applies previously learned material to meet a stated objective. At the University of Connecticut, students work in teams of 3-4 members and work on externally sponsored projects. To facilitate working with sponsors, a WEB based approach is used for reporting the progress on projects. Students are responsible for creating their own WEB sites that support both html and pdf formats. Students provide the following deliverables: weekly progress reports, project statement, specifications, project proposal, interim report, and final report. A senior design homepage also provides links to data books and other resources for use by students. We are also planning distance learning experiences between two campuses so students can work on projects that involve the use of video conferencing.

Challenges and Opportunities in Interdisciplinary Materials Research Experiences for Undergraduates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vohra, Yogesh; Nordlund, Thomas

2009-03-01

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) offer a broad range of interdisciplinary materials research experiences to undergraduate students with diverse backgrounds in physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, and engineering. The research projects offered cover a broad range of topics including high pressure physics, microelectronic materials, nano-materials, laser materials, bioceramics and biopolymers, cell-biomaterials interactions, planetary materials, and computer simulation of materials. The students welcome the opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary team of basic science, engineering, and biomedical faculty but the challenge is in learning the key vocabulary for interdisciplinary collaborations, experimental tools, and working in an independent capacity. The career development workshops dealing with the graduate school application process and the entrepreneurial business activities were found to be most effective. The interdisciplinary university wide poster session helped student broaden their horizons in research careers. The synergy of the REU program with other concurrently running high school summer programs on UAB campus will also be discussed.

Modern technologies for retinal scanning and imaging: an introduction for the biomedical engineer

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

This review article is meant to help biomedical engineers and nonphysical scientists better understand the principles of, and the main trends in modern scanning and imaging modalities used in ophthalmology. It is intended to ease the communication between physicists, medical doctors and engineers, and hopefully encourage “classical” biomedical engineers to generate new ideas and to initiate projects in an area which has traditionally been dominated by optical physics. Most of the methods involved are applicable to other areas of biomedical optics and optoelectronics, such as microscopic imaging, spectroscopy, spectral imaging, opto-acoustic tomography, fluorescence imaging etc., all of which are with potential biomedical application. Although all described methods are novel and important, the emphasis of this review has been placed on three technologies introduced in the 1990’s and still undergoing vigorous development: Confocal Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy, Optical Coherence Tomography, and polarization-sensitive retinal scanning. PMID:24779618

Use of controlled vocabularies to improve biomedical information retrieval tasks.

PubMed

Pasche, Emilie; Gobeill, Julien; Vishnyakova, Dina; Ruch, Patrick; Lovis, Christian

2013-01-01

The high heterogeneity of biomedical vocabulary is a major obstacle for information retrieval in large biomedical collections. Therefore, using biomedical controlled vocabularies is crucial for managing these contents. We investigate the impact of query expansion based on controlled vocabularies to improve the effectiveness of two search engines. Our strategy relies on the enrichment of users' queries with additional terms, directly derived from such vocabularies applied to infectious diseases and chemical patents. We observed that query expansion based on pathogen names resulted in improvements of the top-precision of our first search engine, while the normalization of diseases degraded the top-precision. The expansion of chemical entities, which was performed on the second search engine, positively affected the mean average precision. We have shown that query expansion of some types of biomedical entities has a great potential to improve search effectiveness; therefore a fine-tuning of query expansion strategies could help improving the performances of search engines.

Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics academy: Outcomes from 5 years of Immersing High-school Students into Informatics Research.

PubMed

King, Andrew J; Fisher, Arielle M; Becich, Michael J; Boone, David N

2017-01-01

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biomedical Informatics and Division of Pathology Informatics created a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline in 2011 dedicated to providing cutting-edge informatics research and career preparatory experiences to a diverse group of highly motivated high-school students. In this third editorial installment describing the program, we provide a brief overview of the pipeline, report on achievements of the past scholars, and present results from self-reported assessments by the 2015 cohort of scholars. The pipeline continues to expand with the 2015 addition of the innovation internship, and the introduction of a program in 2016 aimed at offering first-time research experiences to undergraduates who are underrepresented in pathology and biomedical informatics. Achievements of program scholars include authorship of journal articles, symposium and summit presentations, and attendance at top 25 universities. All of our alumni matriculated into higher education and 90% remain in STEM majors. The 2015 high-school program had ten participating scholars who self-reported gains in confidence in their research abilities and understanding of what it means to be a scientist.

Computer Science, Biology and Biomedical Informatics academy: Outcomes from 5 years of Immersing High-school Students into Informatics Research

PubMed Central

King, Andrew J.; Fisher, Arielle M.; Becich, Michael J.; Boone, David N.

2017-01-01

The University of Pittsburgh's Department of Biomedical Informatics and Division of Pathology Informatics created a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline in 2011 dedicated to providing cutting-edge informatics research and career preparatory experiences to a diverse group of highly motivated high-school students. In this third editorial installment describing the program, we provide a brief overview of the pipeline, report on achievements of the past scholars, and present results from self-reported assessments by the 2015 cohort of scholars. The pipeline continues to expand with the 2015 addition of the innovation internship, and the introduction of a program in 2016 aimed at offering first-time research experiences to undergraduates who are underrepresented in pathology and biomedical informatics. Achievements of program scholars include authorship of journal articles, symposium and summit presentations, and attendance at top 25 universities. All of our alumni matriculated into higher education and 90% remain in STEM majors. The 2015 high-school program had ten participating scholars who self-reported gains in confidence in their research abilities and understanding of what it means to be a scientist. PMID:28400991

You're hired! Negotiating your first biomedical engineering position: academia vs. private sector.

PubMed

Linte, Cristian A

2008-01-01

This session is intended to prepare current bio-engineering students and post-doctoral fellows and getting them in the right shape to apply, negotiate and succeed in getting their first job in industry or academia. Tips on putting together the appropriate CV, preparing your portfolio and getting ready for the interview will be covered by the invited speakers. Academia-oriented trainees will also get a better feel on the academic requirements, what items should be highlighted in the CV, what makes a well-rounded junior faculty and what the expectations are of junior/assistant professors.

Interdisciplinary innovations in biomedical and health informatics graduate education.

PubMed

Demiris, G

2007-01-01

Biomedical and health informatics (BHI) is a rapidly growing domain that relies on the active collaboration with diverse disciplines and professions. Educational initiatives in BHI need to prepare students with skills and competencies that will allow them to function within and even facilitate interdisciplinary teams (IDT). This paper describes an interdisciplinary educational approach introduced into a BHI graduate curriculum that aims to prepare informatics researchers to lead IDT research. A case study of the "gerontechnology" research track is presented which highlights how the curriculum fosters collaboration with and understanding of the disciplines of Nursing, Engineering, Computer Science, and Health Administration. Gerontechnology is a new interdisciplinary field that focuses on the use of technology to support aging. Its aim is to explore innovative ways to use information technology and develop systems that support independency and increase quality of life for senior citizens. As a result of a large research group that explores "smart home" technologies and the use of information technology, we integrated this new domain into the curriculum providing a platform for computer scientists, engineers, nurses and physicians to explore challenges and opportunities with our informatics students and faculty. The interdisciplinary educational model provides an opportunity for health informatics students to acquire the skills for communication and collaboration with other disciplines. Numerous graduate and postgraduate students have already participated in this initiative. The evaluation model of this approach is presented. Interdisciplinary educational models are required for health informatics graduate education. Such models need to be innovative and reflect the needs and trends in the domains of health care and information technology.

Development and Evaluation of Thesauri-Based Bibliographic Biomedical Search Engine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alghoson, Abdullah

2017-01-01

Due to the large volume and exponential growth of biomedical documents (e.g., books, journal articles), it has become increasingly challenging for biomedical search engines to retrieve relevant documents based on users' search queries. Part of the challenge is the matching mechanism of free-text indexing that performs matching based on…

Promoting harmonization of BME education in Europe: the CRH-BME Tempus project.

PubMed

Pallikarakis, Nicolas; Bliznakov, Zhivko; Miklavcic, Damijan; Jarm, Tomaz; Magjarevic, Ratko; Lackovic, Igor; Pecchia, Leandro; Stagni, Rita; Jobaggy, Akos; Barbenel, Joseph

2011-01-01

Biomedical Engineers should be prepared to adapt to existing or forecasted needs. There is a strong pressure on education, training and life long learning programs to continuously adapt their objectives in order to face new requirements and challenges. The main objective of the TEMPUS IV, CRH-BME project is to update existing curricula in the field of Biomedical Engineering (BME) in order to meet recent and future developments in the area, address new emerging inter-disciplinary domains that appear as a result of the R&D progress and respond to the BME job market demands. The first step is to extensively review the curricula in the BME education field. In this paper, a proposal for a generic curriculum in the BME education is presented, in order to meet recent and future developments and respond to the demands of the BME job market. Adoption of the core program structure will facilitate harmonization of studies as well as student and staff exchange across Europe, thus promoting the European Higher Education Area.

Influencing the job market by the quality of graduates--a biomedical engineering example.

PubMed

Augustyniak, Ewa; Augustyniak, Piotr

2015-01-01

Academic teaching of a new discipline, besides its contents and formal issues, requires participation of the university in development of a target job market. This was the case of biomedical engineering in Poland ten years ago. This paper presents examples of activities, taken up by our university in cooperation with prospective employers, and evaluated with a help of our first alumni. The evaluation survey shows that despite the immature job market, the number of graduates employed accordingly to their education systematically raises each year from 72,5% in 2011 to 93,8% in 2013. Another interesting result is the distribution of job searching period: 19.2% of graduates were already employed before the graduation, further 23.1% found their job in less than one month after the diploma examination and another 28.8% in less than three months. The paper also highlights the role the former graduates play in motivating teachers and students to efforts towards a better educational outcome.

Stereotyping at the undergraduate level revealed during interprofessional learning between future doctors and biomedical scientists.

PubMed

Lewitt, Moira S; Ehrenborg, Ewa; Scheja, Max; Brauner, Annelie

2010-01-01

Interprofessional education (IPE) involving undergraduate health professionals is expected to promote collaboration in their later careers. The role of IPE between doctors and biomedical scientists has not been explored at the undergraduate level. Our aim was to introduce IPE sessions for medical and biomedical students in order to identify the benefits and barriers to these groups learning together. Medical and biomedical students together discussed laboratory results, relevant literature, and ideas for developing new diagnostic tools. The programme was evaluated with questionnaires and interviews. While there was general support for the idea of IPE, medical and biomedical students responded differently. Biomedical students were more critical, wanted more explicit learning objectives and felt that their professional role was often misunderstood. The medical students were more enthusiastic but regarded the way the biomedical students communicated concerns about their perceived role as a barrier to effective interprofessional learning. We conclude that stereotyping, which can impede effective collaborations between doctors and biomedical scientists, is already present at the undergraduate level and may be a barrier to IPE. Effective learning opportunities should be supported at the curriculum level and be designed to specifically enable a broad appreciation of each other's future professional roles.

[Integration of fundamental and applied medical and technical research made at the department of the biomedical systems, Moscow State Institute of Electronic Engineering].

PubMed

Selishchev, S V

2004-01-01

The integration results of fundamental and applied medical-and-technical research made at the chair of biomedical systems, Moscow state institute of electronic engineering (technical university--MSIEE), are described in the paper. The chair is guided in its research activity by the traditions of higher education in Russia in the field of biomedical electronics and biomedical engineering. Its activities are based on the extrapolation of methods of electronic tools, computer technologies, physics, biology and medicine with due respect being paid to the requirements of practical medicine and to topical issues of research and design.

Space Grant Research Launches Rehabilitation Chair

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2015-01-01

Working with funding from the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program-which was implemented by NASA Headquarters to fund research, education, and public service projects-a biomedical engineering student created a vibration-based system that could combat bone loss from prolonged trips to space. A rehabilitation chair incorporating the technology is now sold by Sheboygan, Wisconsin-based VibeTech Inc. and is helping people recover more quickly from injuries and surgery.

[Metrology research on biomedical engineering publications from China in recent years].

PubMed

Yu, Lu; Su, Juan; Wang, Ying; Sha, Xianzheng

2014-12-01

The present paper is to evaluate the scientific research level and development trends of biomedical engineering in China using metrology analysis on Chinese biomedical engineering scientific literatures. Pubmed is used to search the biomedical engineering publications in recent 5 years which are indexed by Science Citation Index, and the number and cited times of these publications and the impact factor of the journals are analyzed. The results show that comparing with the world, although the number of the publication in China has increased in recent 5 years, there is still much room for improvement. Among Chinese mainland, Hongkong and Taiwan, Chinese mainland maintains the obvious advantage in this subject, but Hongkong has the highest average cited number. Shanghai and Beijing have better research ability than other areas in Chinese mainland.

Biomedical Engineering Education in Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gowen, Richard J.

1973-01-01

Discusses recent developments in the health care industry and their impact on the future of biomedical engineering education. Indicates that a more thorough understanding of the complex functions of the living organism can be acquired through the application of engineering techniques to problems of life sciences. (CC)

Commercialising genetically engineered animal biomedical products.

PubMed

Sullivan, Eddie J; Pommer, Jerry; Robl, James M

2008-01-01

Research over the past two decades has increased the quality and quantity of tools available to produce genetically engineered animals. The number of potentially viable biomedical products from genetically engineered animals is increasing. However, moving from cutting-edge research to development and commercialisation of a biomedical product that is useful and wanted by the public has significant challenges. Even early stage development of genetically engineered animal applications requires consideration of many steps, including quality assurance and quality control, risk management, gap analysis, founder animal establishment, cell banking, sourcing of animals and animal-derived material, animal facilities, product collection facilities and processing facilities. These steps are complicated and expensive. Biomedical applications of genetically engineered animals have had some recent successes and many applications are well into development. As researchers consider applications for their findings, having a realistic understanding of the steps involved in the development and commercialisation of a product, produced in genetically engineered animals, is useful in determining the risk of genetic modification to the animal nu. the potential public benefit of the application.

The fully integrated biomedical engineering programme at Eindhoven University of Technology.

PubMed

Slaaf, D W; van Genderen, M H P

2009-05-01

The development of a fully integrated biomedical engineering programme (life sciences included from the start) is described. Details are provided about background, implementation, and didactic concept: design centred learning combined with courses. The curriculum has developed into a bachelor-master's programme with two different master's degrees: Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering and Master's Degree in Medical Engineering. Recently, the programme has adopted semester programming, has included a major and minor in the bachelor's degree phase, and a true bachelor's degree final project. Details about the programme and data about where graduates find jobs are provided in this paper.

A Program on Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

San, Ka-Yiu; McIntire, Larry V.

1989-01-01

Presents an introduction to the Biochemical and Biomedical Engineering program at Rice University. Describes the development of the academic and enhancement programs, including organizational structure and research project titles. (YP)

The natural history of the sleep and respiratory engineering track at EMBC 1988 to 2010.

PubMed

Leder, Ron S; Schlotthauer, Gaston; Penzel, Thomas; Jane, Raimon

2010-01-01

Sleep science and respiratory engineering as medical subspecialties and research areas grew up side-by-side with biomedical engineering. The formation of EMBS in the 1950's and the discovery of REM sleep in the 1950's led to parallel development and interaction of sleep and biomedical engineering in diagnostics and therapeutics.

Experiences in teaching of modeling and simulation with emphasize on equation-based and acausal modeling techniques.

PubMed

Kulhánek, Tomáš; Ježek, Filip; Mateják, Marek; Šilar, Jan; Kofránek, Jří

2015-08-01

This work introduces experiences of teaching modeling and simulation for graduate students in the field of biomedical engineering. We emphasize the acausal and object-oriented modeling technique and we have moved from teaching block-oriented tool MATLAB Simulink to acausal and object oriented Modelica language, which can express the structure of the system rather than a process of computation. However, block-oriented approach is allowed in Modelica language too and students have tendency to express the process of computation. Usage of the exemplar acausal domains and approach allows students to understand the modeled problems much deeper. The causality of the computation is derived automatically by the simulation tool.

How Do Interaction Experiences Influence Doctoral Students' Academic Pursuits in Biomedical Research?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kong, Xiaoqing; Chakraverty, Devasmita; Jeffe, Donna B.; Andriole, Dorothy A.; Wathington, Heather D.; Tai, Robert H.

2013-01-01

This exploratory qualitative study investigated how doctoral students reported their personal and professional interaction experiences that they believed might facilitate or impede their academic pursuits in biomedical research. We collected 19 in-depth interviews with doctoral students in biomedical research from eight universities, and we based…

Ethics in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Morsy, Ahmed; Flexman, Jennifer

2008-01-01

This session focuses on a number of aspects of the subject of Ethics in Biomedical Engineering. The session starts by providing a case study of a company that manufactures artificial heart valves where the valves were failing at an unexpected rate. The case study focuses on Biomedical Engineers working at the company and how their education and training did not prepare them to deal properly with such situation. The second part of the session highlights the need to learn about various ethics rules and policies regulating research involving human or animal subjects.

From Bench to Bedside: A communal utility value intervention to enhance students' biomedical science motivation.

PubMed

Brown, Elizabeth R; Smith, Jessi L; Thoman, Dustin B; Allen, Jill M; Muragishi, Gregg

2015-11-01

Motivating students to pursue science careers is a top priority among many science educators. We add to the growing literature by examining the impact of a utility value intervention to enhance student's perceptions that biomedical science affords important utility work values. Using an expectancy-value perspective we identify and test two types of utility value: communal (other-oriented) and agentic (self-oriented). The culture of science is replete with examples emphasizing high levels of agentic value, but communal values are often (stereotyped as) absent from science. However, people in general want an occupation that has communal utility. We predicted and found that an intervention emphasizing the communal utility value of biomedical research increased students' motivation for biomedical science (Studies 1-3). We refined whether different types of communal utility value (working with, helping, and forming relationships with others) might be more or less important, demonstrating that helping others was an especially important predictor of student motivation (Study 2). Adding agentic utility value to biomedical research did not further increase student motivation (Study 3). Furthermore, the communal value intervention indirectly impacted students' motivation because students believed that biomedical research was communal and thus subsequently more important (Studies 1-3). This is key, because enhancing student communal value beliefs about biomedical research (Studies 1-3) and science (Study 4) was associated both with momentary increases in motivation in experimental settings (Studies 1-3) and increased motivation over time among students highly identified with biomedicine (Study 4). We discuss recommendations for science educators, practitioners, and faculty mentors who want to broaden participation in science.

The theory and design of piezoelectric/pyroelectric polymer film sensors for biomedical engineering applications.

PubMed

Brown, L F

1989-01-01

The unique properties of piezoelectric/pyroelectric polymers offer many new opportunities for biomedical engineering sensor applications. Since their discovery nearly 20 years ago, the polymer films have been used for many novel switching and sensor applications. Despite the prodigious exposure from many recent publications describing piezo film applications, methods of sensor fabrication and circuit interfacing still elude most engineers. This paper is presented as a tutorial guide to applying piezo polymers to biomedical engineering applications. A review of the fundamentals of piezoelectricity/pyroelectricity in piezo polymers is first presented. Their material properties are contrasted with piezoelectric ceramic materials. Some advantages and disadvantages of the films for biomedical sensors are discussed. Specific details on the fabrication of piezo film sensors are presented. Methods are described for forming, cutting, and mounting film sensors, and making lead connections. A brief discussion of equivalent circuit models for the design and simulation of piezoelectric/pyroelectric sensors is included, as well as common circuit interface techniques. Finally, several sources are recommended for further information on a variety of biomedical sensor applications.

Evidence-based approach to the maintenance of laboratory and medical equipment in resource-poor settings.

PubMed

Malkin, Robert; Keane, Allison

2010-07-01

Much of the laboratory and medical equipment in resource-poor settings is out-of-service. The most commonly cited reasons are (1) a lack of spare parts and (2) a lack of highly trained technicians. However, there is little data to support these hypotheses, or to generate evidence-based solutions to the problem. We studied 2,849 equipment-repair requests (of which 2,529 were out-of-service medical equipment) from 60 resource-poor hospitals located in 11 nations in Africa, Europe, Asia, and Central America. Each piece of equipment was analyzed by an engineer or an engineering student and a repair was attempted using only locally available materials. If the piece was placed back into service, we assumed that the engineer's problem analysis was correct. A total of 1,821 pieces of medical equipment were placed back into service, or 72%, without requiring the use of imported spare parts. Of those pieces repaired, 1,704 were sufficiently documented to determine what knowledge was required to place the equipment back into service. We found that six domains of knowledge were required to accomplish 99% of the repairs: electrical (18%), mechanical (18%), power supply (14%), plumbing (19%), motors (5%), and installation or user training (25%). A further analysis of the domains shows that 66% of the out-of-service equipment was placed back into service using only 107 skills covering basic knowledge in each domain; far less knowledge than that required of a biomedical engineer or biomedical engineering technician. We conclude that a great majority of laboratory and medical equipment can be put back into service without importing spare parts and using only basic knowledge. Capacity building in resource-poor settings should first focus on a limited set of knowledge; a body of knowledge that we call the biomedical technician's assistant (BTA). This data set suggests that a supported BTA could place 66% of the out-of-service laboratory and medical equipment in their hospital back into service.

Project support of practical training in biophysics.

PubMed

Mornstein, V; Vlk, D; Forytkova, L

2006-01-01

The Department of Biophysics ensures practical training in biophysics and related subjects for students of medical and health study programmes. Demonstrations of medical technology are an important part of this training. Teaching for Faculty of Sciences in biophysical study programmes becomes also very important. Some lectures and demonstrations of technology are involved, but the practical trainig is missing. About 1 mil. CZK for additional laboratory equipment was obtained from the HEIDF project No. 1866/ 2005 "The demonstration and measuring technology for education in medical biophysics and radiological physics" for measuring system DEWETRON for high frequency signal analysis, Fluke Ti30 IR camera, PM 9000B patient monitor, ARSENAL AF 1 fluorescence microscope, and Nikon Coolpix 4500 digital camera with accessories for microphotography. At the present time, further financial resources are being provided by a development project of Ministry of Education "Inter-university co-operation in biomedical technology and engineering using top technologies" in total amount of almost 5 mil CZK, whereas over 2 mil CZK from this project are reserved for student laboratory equipment. The main goal of this project is to ensure the participation of Medical Faculty in educational co-operation in the biomedical technology and engineering, namely with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication (FEEC), Brno University of Technology. There will be taught those areas of biophysics which are not covered by FEEC, thus forming a separate subject "General Biophysics". The following instruments will be installed: UV-VIS spectrophotometers, rotation viscometers, tensiometers, microscopes with digital image processing, cooled centrifuge, optical benches, and some smaller instruments for practical measurements.

A unified architecture for biomedical search engines based on semantic web technologies.

PubMed

Jalali, Vahid; Matash Borujerdi, Mohammad Reza

2011-04-01

There is a huge growth in the volume of published biomedical research in recent years. Many medical search engines are designed and developed to address the over growing information needs of biomedical experts and curators. Significant progress has been made in utilizing the knowledge embedded in medical ontologies and controlled vocabularies to assist these engines. However, the lack of common architecture for utilized ontologies and overall retrieval process, hampers evaluating different search engines and interoperability between them under unified conditions. In this paper, a unified architecture for medical search engines is introduced. Proposed model contains standard schemas declared in semantic web languages for ontologies and documents used by search engines. Unified models for annotation and retrieval processes are other parts of introduced architecture. A sample search engine is also designed and implemented based on the proposed architecture in this paper. The search engine is evaluated using two test collections and results are reported in terms of precision vs. recall and mean average precision for different approaches used by this search engine.

Engineering mechanical microenvironment of macrophage and its biomedical applications.

PubMed

Li, Jing; Li, Yuhui; Gao, Bin; Qin, Chuanguang; He, Yining; Xu, Feng; Yang, Hui; Lin, Min

2018-03-01

Macrophages are the most plastic cells in the hematopoietic system and can be widely found in almost all tissues. Recently studies have shown that mechanical cues (e.g., matrix stiffness and stress/strain) can significantly affect macrophage behaviors. Although existing reviews on the physical and mechanical cues that regulate the macrophage's phenotype are available, engineering mechanical microenvironment of macrophages in vitro as well as a comprehensive overview and prospects for their biomedical applications (e.g., tissue engineering and immunotherapy) has yet to be summarized. Thus, this review provides an overview on the existing methods for engineering mechanical microenvironment of macrophages in vitro and then a section on their biomedical applications and further perspectives are presented.

A special issue on reviews in biomedical applications of nanomaterials, tissue engineering, stem cells, bioimaging, and toxicity.

PubMed

Nalwa, Hari Singh

2014-10-01

This second special issue of the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology in a series contains another 30 state-of-the-art reviews focused on the biomedical applications of nanomaterials, biosensors, bone tissue engineering, MRI and bioimaging, single-cell detection, stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, toxicity and biosafety of nanodrugs, nanoparticle-based new therapeutic approaches for cancer, hepatic and cardiovascular disease.

Simbody: multibody dynamics for biomedical research.

PubMed

Sherman, Michael A; Seth, Ajay; Delp, Scott L

Multibody software designed for mechanical engineering has been successfully employed in biomedical research for many years. For real time operation some biomedical researchers have also adapted game physics engines. However, these tools were built for other purposes and do not fully address the needs of biomedical researchers using them to analyze the dynamics of biological structures and make clinically meaningful recommendations. We are addressing this problem through the development of an open source, extensible, high performance toolkit including a multibody mechanics library aimed at the needs of biomedical researchers. The resulting code, Simbody, supports research in a variety of fields including neuromuscular, prosthetic, and biomolecular simulation, and related research such as biologically-inspired design and control of humanoid robots and avatars. Simbody is the dynamics engine behind OpenSim, a widely used biomechanics simulation application. This article reviews issues that arise uniquely in biomedical research, and reports on the architecture, theory, and computational methods Simbody uses to address them. By addressing these needs explicitly Simbody provides a better match to the needs of researchers than can be obtained by adaptation of mechanical engineering or gaming codes. Simbody is a community resource, free for any purpose. We encourage wide adoption and invite contributions to the code base at https://simtk.org/home/simbody.

Awareness about biomedical waste management and knowledge of effective recycling of dental materials among dental students.

PubMed

Ranjan, Rajeev; Pathak, Ruchi; Singh, Dhirendra K; Jalaluddin, Md; Kore, Shobha A; Kore, Abhijeet R

2016-01-01

Biomedical waste management has become a concern with increasing number of dental practitioners in India. Being health care professionals, dentists should be aware regarding safe disposal of biomedical waste and recycling of dental materials to minimize biohazards to the environment. The aim of the present study was to assess awareness regarding biomedical waste management as well as knowledge of effective recycling and reuse of dental materials among dental students. This cross-sectional study was conducted among dental students belonging from all dental colleges of Bhubaneswar, Odisha (India) from February 2016 to April 2016. A total of 500 students (208 males and 292 females) participated in the study, which was conducted in two phases. A questionnaire was distributed to assess the awareness of biomedical waste management and knowledge of effective recycling of dental materials, and collected data was examined on a 5-point unipolar scale in percentages to assess the relative awareness regarding these two different categorizes. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to analyzed collected data. Forty-four percent of the dental students were not at all aware about the management of biomedical waste, 22% were moderately aware, 21% slightly aware, 7% very aware, and 5% fell in extremely aware category. Similarly, a higher percentage of participants (61%) were completely unaware regarding recycling and reusing of biomedical waste. There is lack of sufficient knowledge among dental students regarding management of biomedical waste and recycling or reusing of dental materials. Considering its impact on the environment, biomedical waste management requires immediate academic assessment to increase the awareness during training courses.

Careers in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Madrid, R E; Rotger, V I; Herrera, M C

2010-01-01

Although biomedical engineering was started in Argentina about 35 years ago, it has had a sustained growth for the last 25 years in human resources, with the emergence of new undergraduate and postgraduate careers, as well as in research, knowledge, technological development, and health care.

Introducing High School Students to Careers in Osteopathic Medicine.

PubMed

Wilson, Nedra F

2017-05-01

An aging population and expansion of health care coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act have led to a predicted deficit of primary care physicians by 2025. In response, medical schools must develop new strategies to identify students early in their educational pathways to encourage exploration of careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, especially medicine. Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences developed 2 internship programs, Oklahoma Science Training and Research Students (OKStars) and Native OKStars, to introduce high school students to osteopathic medicine. Native OKStars was designed to encourage Native American students, who are underrepresented in STEM fields, to pursue osteopathic medicine. These programs provided students with a 6-week immersion in biomedical research, along with weekly discussion groups with mentors. Participant questionnaire responses suggested that these programs were effective in introducing them to careers in osteopathic medicine as well as other STEM fields.

Palmetto Academy: Undergraduates Exploring and Communicating the Multidisciplinary Nature of STEM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hall, C.; Ali, A.; Runyon, C. J.; Colgan, M. W.

2012-12-01

One of the pillars of the US economy is a well-trained Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) workforce (National Academy of Sciences, 2007). The number of students choosing to study science and engineering has taken a dramatic decline. The percentage of those degrees conferred in SC was substantially lower than the national average and the percentage of those occupations within the SC workforce also falls below the national average, supporting the need for engaging and educational STEM programs. The NASA South Carolina Space Grant Consortium's Palmetto Research Academy (PRA) program is an immersive and integrated multidisciplinary exposure and training for undergraduate students with various backgrounds and career aspirations of critical importance to the Nation. This program offers exciting and inspiring hands-on research experiences that are aligned with NASA missions. The PRA advances NASA's research interest in areas such as aeronautics, biomedical science, sun-earth connections, planetary and Earth science. The PRA helps to develop the STEM workforce in STEM disciplines, a necessity in South Carolina. In addition, the PRA incorporates an education/outreach component, where the students engage secondary educators and students in NASA scientific and technical expertise. In 2012, the PRA had 10 research projects across the state in disciplines of mechanical and chemical engineering, bioengineering, chemistry, biogeooptical sciences, physics and astronomy and biomedical sciences. 18 undergraduates and 2 technical college students participated in authentic hands-on research mentored by leading scientists and engineers throughout the state. Examples projects include: A) Development of a series of astronomical telescopes to be mounted on a commercial human-tended suborbital rockets. The students built the instrument, including the power system and the mechanical interface, and performed function and fit testing on the XCOR Aerospace Lynx vehicle mock-up. B) Mechanical modeling and statistical analysis to understand effects of radiation exposure on the joints of astronauts. The students characterized the effect of radiation on porcine cartilage biomechanics and biosynthesis through nano and microscale soft tissue mechanical testing, histological staining, and tissue biological assay techniques. C) Spectroscopy and derivation of water quality parameters from satellite visible/near-infrared (VIR) spectral radiometry. The student analyzed data, which provided frequent spatial information critical to the understanding of biogeochemical processes of interest to climate studies. The student conducted an intensive sampling campaign aboard a research vessel measuring biogeooptical properties and developed bio-optical models using NASA's MODIS sensor aboard the Aqua satellite to characterize water quality parameters (phytoplankton, suspended sediment, and dissolved organic matter). The student outreach project centered around the NASA Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover. The PRA interns organized an event with several general astronomy and Mars/Curiosity planetarium shows, space-related games, and a viewing of the landing for over 50 elementary-middle school students, their parents, and numerous undergraduates. The results and the opportunities provided by PRA will be discussed.

Evaluation of FCS self and peer-assessment approach based on Cooperative and Engineering Design learning.

PubMed

Cvetkovic, Dean

2013-01-01

The Cooperative Learning in Engineering Design curriculum can be enhanced with structured and timely self and peer assessment teaching methodologies which can easily be applied to any Biomedical Engineering curriculum. A study was designed and implemented to evaluate the effectiveness of this structured and timely self and peer assessment on student team-based projects. In comparing the 'peer-blind' and 'face-to-face' Fair Contribution Scoring (FCS) methods, both had advantages and disadvantages. The 'peer-blind' self and peer assessment method would cause high discrepancy between self and team ratings. But the 'face-to-face' method on the other hand did not have the discrepancy issue and had actually proved to be a more accurate and effective, indicating team cohesiveness and good cooperative learning.

John Glenn Biomedical Engineering Consortium

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nall, Marsha

2004-01-01

The John Glenn Biomedical Engineering Consortium is an inter-institutional research and technology development, beginning with ten projects in FY02 that are aimed at applying GRC expertise in fluid physics and sensor development with local biomedical expertise to mitigate the risks of space flight on the health, safety, and performance of astronauts. It is anticipated that several new technologies will be developed that are applicable to both medical needs in space and on earth.

How Do Interaction Experiences Influence Doctoral Students' Academic Pursuits in Biomedical Research?

PubMed

Kong, Xiaoqing; Chakraverty, Devasmita; Jeffe, Donna B; Andriole, Dorothy A; Wathington, Heather D; Tai, Robert H

2013-01-01

This exploratory qualitative study investigated how doctoral students reported their personal and professional interaction experiences that they believed might facilitate or impede their academic pursuits in biomedical research. We collected 19 in-depth interviews with doctoral students in biomedical research from eight universities, and we based our qualitative analytic approach on the work of Miles and Huberman. The results indicated that among different sources and types of interaction, academic and emotional interactions from family and teachers in various stages essentially affected students' persistence in the biomedical science field. In addition, co-mentorship among peers, departmental environment, and volunteer experiences were other essential factors. This study also found related experiences among women and underrepresented minority students that were important to their academic pursuit.

Convolving engineering and medical pedagogies for training of tomorrow's health care professionals.

PubMed

Lee, Raphael C

2013-03-01

Several fundamental benefits justify why biomedical engineering and medicine should form a more convergent alliance, especially for the training of tomorrow's physicians and biomedical engineers. Herein, we review the rationale underlying the benefits. Biological discovery has advanced beyond the era of molecular biology well into today's era of molecular systems biology, which focuses on understanding the rules that govern the behavior of complex living systems. This has important medical implications. To realize cost-effective personalized medicine, it is necessary to translate the advances in molecular systems biology to higher levels of biological organization (organ, system, and organismal levels) and then to develop new medical therapeutics based on simulation and medical informatics analysis. Higher education in biological and medical sciences must adapt to a new set of training objectives. This will involve a shifting away from reductionist problem solving toward more integrative, continuum, and predictive modeling approaches which traditionally have been more associated with engineering science. Future biomedical engineers and MDs must be able to predict clinical response to therapeutic intervention. Medical education will involve engineering pedagogies, wherein basic governing rules of complex system behavior and skill sets in manipulating these systems to achieve a practical desired outcome are taught. Similarly, graduate biomedical engineering programs will include more practical exposure to clinical problem solving.

Awareness about biomedical waste management and knowledge of effective recycling of dental materials among dental students

PubMed Central

Ranjan, Rajeev; Pathak, Ruchi; Singh, Dhirendra K.; Jalaluddin, Md.; Kore, Shobha A.; Kore, Abhijeet R.

2016-01-01

Aims and Objectives: Biomedical waste management has become a concern with increasing number of dental practitioners in India. Being health care professionals, dentists should be aware regarding safe disposal of biomedical waste and recycling of dental materials to minimize biohazards to the environment. The aim of the present study was to assess awareness regarding biomedical waste management as well as knowledge of effective recycling and reuse of dental materials among dental students. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among dental students belonging from all dental colleges of Bhubaneswar, Odisha (India) from February 2016 to April 2016. A total of 500 students (208 males and 292 females) participated in the study, which was conducted in two phases. A questionnaire was distributed to assess the awareness of biomedical waste management and knowledge of effective recycling of dental materials, and collected data was examined on a 5-point unipolar scale in percentages to assess the relative awareness regarding these two different categorizes. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences was used to analyzed collected data. Results: Forty-four percent of the dental students were not at all aware about the management of biomedical waste, 22% were moderately aware, 21% slightly aware, 7% very aware, and 5% fell in extremely aware category. Similarly, a higher percentage of participants (61%) were completely unaware regarding recycling and reusing of biomedical waste. Conclusion: There is lack of sufficient knowledge among dental students regarding management of biomedical waste and recycling or reusing of dental materials. Considering its impact on the environment, biomedical waste management requires immediate academic assessment to increase the awareness during training courses. PMID:27891315

[Biomedical information on the internet using search engines. A one-year trial].

PubMed

Corrao, Salvatore; Leone, Francesco; Arnone, Sabrina

2004-01-01

The internet is a communication medium and content distributor that provide information in the general sense but it could be of great utility regarding as the search and retrieval of biomedical information. Search engines represent a great deal to rapidly find information on the net. However, we do not know whether general search engines and meta-search ones are reliable in order to find useful and validated biomedical information. The aim of our study was to verify the reproducibility of a search by key-words (pediatric or evidence) using 9 international search engines and 1 meta-search engine at the baseline and after a one year period. We analysed the first 20 citations as output of each searching. We evaluated the formal quality of Web-sites and their domain extensions. Moreover, we compared the output of each search at the start of this study and after a one year period and we considered as a criterion of reliability the number of Web-sites cited again. We found some interesting results that are reported throughout the text. Our findings point out an extreme dynamicity of the information on the Web and, for this reason, we advice a great caution when someone want to use search and meta-search engines as a tool for searching and retrieve reliable biomedical information. On the other hand, some search and meta-search engines could be very useful as a first step searching for defining better a search and, moreover, for finding institutional Web-sites too. This paper allows to know a more conscious approach to the internet biomedical information universe.

Biomedical equipment and medical services in India.

PubMed

Sahay, K B; Saxena, R K

Varieties of Biomedical Equipment (BME) are now used for quick diagnosis, flawless surgery and therapeutics etc. Use of a malfunctioning BME could result in faulty diagnosis and wrong treatment and can lead to damaging or even devastating aftermath. Modern Biomedical Equipments inevitably employ highly sophisticated technology and use complex systems and instrumentation for best results. To the best of our knowledge the medical education in India does not impart any knowledge on the theory and design of BME and it is perhaps not possible also. Hence there is need for a permanent mechanism which can maintain and repair the biomedical equipments routinely before use and this can be done only with the help of qualified Clinical Engineers. Thus there is a genuine need for well organized cadre of Clinical Engineers who would be persons with engineering background with specialization in medical instrumentation. These Clinical engineers should be made responsible for the maintenance and proper functioning of BME. Every hospital or group of hospitals in the advanced countries has a clinical engineering unit that takes care of the biomedical equipments and systems in the hospital by undertaking routine and preventive maintenance, regular calibration of equipments and their timely repairs. Clinical engineers should be thus made an essential part of modern health care system and services. Unfortunately such facilities and mechanism do not exist in India. To make BME maintenance efficient and flawless in India, study suggests following measures and remedies: (i) design and development of comprehensive computerized database for BME (ii) cadre of Clinical engineers (iii) online maintenance facility and (iv) farsighted managerial skill to maximize accuracy, functioning and cost effectiveness.

ChE Undergraduate Research Projects in Biomedical Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stroeve, Pieter

1981-01-01

Describes an undergraduate research program in biomedical engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Includes goals and faculty comments on the program. Indicates that 58 percent of projects conducted between 1976 and 1980 have been presented at meetings or published. (SK)

Biomedical Ph.D. students enrolled in two elite universities in the United kingdom and the United States report adopting multiple learning relationships.

PubMed

Kemp, Matthew W; Lazarus, Benjamin M; Perron, Gabriel G; Hanage, William P; Chapman, Elaine

2014-01-01

The ability to form multiple learning relationships is a key element of the doctoral learning environment in the biomedical sciences. Of these relationships, that between student and supervisor has long been viewed as key. There are, however, limited data to describe the student perspective on what makes this relationship valuable. In the present study, we discuss the findings of semi-structured interviews with biomedical Ph.D. students from the United Kingdom and the United States to: i) determine if the learning relationships identified in an Australian biomedical Ph.D. cohort are also important in a larger international student cohort; and ii) improve our understanding of student perceptions of value in their supervisory relationships. 32 students from two research intensive universities, one in the United Kingdom (n = 17), and one in the United States (n = 15) were recruited to participate in a semi-structured interview. Verbatim transcripts were transcribed, validated and analysed using a Miles and Huberman method for thematic analysis. Students reported that relationships with other Ph.D. students, post-doctoral scientists and supervisors were all essential to their learning. Effective supervisory relationships were perceived as the primary source of high-level project guidance, intellectual support and confidence. Relationships with fellow students were viewed as essential for the provision of empathetic emotional support. Technical learning was facilitated, almost exclusively, by relationships with postdoctoral staff. These data make two important contributions to the scholarship of doctoral education in the biomedical sciences. Firstly, they provide further evidence for the importance of multiple learning relationships in the biomedical doctorate. Secondly, they clarify the form of a 'valued' supervisory relationship from a student perspective. We conclude that biomedical doctoral programs should be designed to contain a minimum level of formalised structure to promote the development of multiple learning relationships that are perceived as key to student learning.

Biomedical Ph.D. Students Enrolled in Two Elite Universities in the United Kingdom and the United States Report Adopting Multiple Learning Relationships

PubMed Central

Kemp, Matthew W.; Lazarus, Benjamin M.; Perron, Gabriel G.; Hanage, William P.; Chapman, Elaine

2014-01-01

Objective The ability to form multiple learning relationships is a key element of the doctoral learning environment in the biomedical sciences. Of these relationships, that between student and supervisor has long been viewed as key. There are, however, limited data to describe the student perspective on what makes this relationship valuable. In the present study, we discuss the findings of semi-structured interviews with biomedical Ph.D. students from the United Kingdom and the United States to: i) determine if the learning relationships identified in an Australian biomedical Ph.D. cohort are also important in a larger international student cohort; and ii) improve our understanding of student perceptions of value in their supervisory relationships. Study Design 32 students from two research intensive universities, one in the United Kingdom (n = 17), and one in the United States (n = 15) were recruited to participate in a semi-structured interview. Verbatim transcripts were transcribed, validated and analysed using a Miles and Huberman method for thematic analysis. Results Students reported that relationships with other Ph.D. students, post-doctoral scientists and supervisors were all essential to their learning. Effective supervisory relationships were perceived as the primary source of high-level project guidance, intellectual support and confidence. Relationships with fellow students were viewed as essential for the provision of empathetic emotional support. Technical learning was facilitated, almost exclusively, by relationships with postdoctoral staff. Conclusions These data make two important contributions to the scholarship of doctoral education in the biomedical sciences. Firstly, they provide further evidence for the importance of multiple learning relationships in the biomedical doctorate. Secondly, they clarify the form of a ‘valued’ supervisory relationship from a student perspective. We conclude that biomedical doctoral programs should be designed to contain a minimum level of formalised structure to promote the development of multiple learning relationships that are perceived as key to student learning. PMID:25054473

Biomedical engineers and participation in judicial executions: capital punishment as a technical problem.

PubMed

Doyle, John

2007-01-01

This paper discusses the topic of judicial execution from the perspective of the intersection of the technological issues and the professional ethics issues. Although physicians are generally ethically forbidden from any involvement in the judicial execution process, this does not appear to be the case for engineering professionals. This creates an interesting but controversial opportunity for the engineering community (especially biomedical engineers) to improve the humaneness and reliability of the judicial execution process.

Status of Research in Biomedical Engineering 1968.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Inst. of General Medical Sciences (NIH), Bethesda, MD.

This status report is divided into eight sections. The first four represent the classical engineering or building aspects of bioengineering and deal with biomedical instrumentation, prosthetics, man-machine systems and computer and information systems. The next three sections are related to the scientific, intellectual and academic influence of…

The Washington Academy of Biomedical Engineering (WABME) Quarterly Workshops: Clinical Problems and Engineering Solutions

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-01-01

bioengineering programs and activities of The Catholic University of America, Georgetown University, The George Washington University and Howard ... University . A prime component of WABME activities is a quarterly series of research workshops, which bring together problem-rich biomedical disciplines and

Using Biomedically Relevant Multimedia Content in an Introductory Physics Course for Life Science and Pre-health Students

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mylott, Elliot; Kutschera, Ellynne; Dunlap, Justin C.; Christensen, Warren; Widenhorn, Ralf

2016-04-01

We will describe a one-quarter pilot algebra-based introductory physics course for pre-health and life science majors. The course features videos with biomedical experts and cogent biomedically inspired physics content. The materials were used in a flipped classroom as well as an all-online environment where students interacted with multimedia materials online and prior to engaging in classroom activities. Pre-lecture questions on both the medical content covered in the video media and the physics concepts in the written material were designed to engage students and probe their understanding of physics. The course featured group discussion and peer-lead instruction. Following in-class instruction, students engaged with homework assignments which explore the connections of physics and the medical field in a quantitative manner. Course surveys showed a positive response by the vast majority of students. Students largely indicated that the course helped them to make a connection between physics and the biomedical field. The biomedical focus and different course format were seen as an improvement to previous traditional physics instruction.

Moral reasoning about great apes in research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okamoto, Carol Midori

2006-04-01

This study explored how individuals (biomedical scientists, Great Ape Project activists, lay adults, undergraduate biology and environmental studies students, and Grade 12 and 9 biology students) morally judge and reason about using great apes in biomedical and language research. How these groups perceived great apes' mental capacities (e.g., pain, logical thinking) and how these perceptions related to their judgments were investigated through two scenarios. In addition, the kinds of informational statements (e.g., biology, economics) that may affect individuals' scenario judgments were investigated. A negative correlation was found between mental attributions and scenario judgments while no clear pattern occurred for the informational statements. For the biomedical scenario, all groups significantly differed in mean judgment ratings except for the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students. For the language scenario, all groups differed except for the GAP activists, and undergraduate environmental studies and Grade 9 students. An in-depth qualitative analysis showed that although the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students had similar judgments, they produced different mean percentages of justifications under four moral frameworks (virtue, utilitarianism, deontology, and welfare). The GAP activists used more virtue reasoning while the biomedical scientists and Grade 9 students used more utilitarian and welfare reasoning, respectively. The results are discussed in terms of developing environmental/humane education curricula.

Using biomedical engineering and "hidden capital" to provide educational outreach to disadvantaged populations.

PubMed

Drazan, John F; Scott, John M; Hoke, Jahkeen I; Ledet, Eric H

2014-01-01

A hands-on learning module called "Science of the Slam" is created that taps into the passions and interests of an under-represented group in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This is achieved by examining the use of the scientific method to quantify the biomechanics of basketball players who are good at performing the slam dunk. Students already have an intrinsic understanding of the biomechanics of basketball however this "hidden capital" has never translated into the underlying STEM concepts. The effectiveness of the program is rooted in the exploitation of "hidden capital" within the field of athletics to inform and enhance athletic performance. This translation of STEM concepts to athletic performance provides a context and a motivation for students to study the STEM fields who are traditionally disengaged from the classic engineering outreach programs. "Science of the Slam" has the potential to serve as a framework for other researchers to engage under-represented groups in novel ways by tapping into shared interests between the researcher and disadvantaged populations.

Developing a search engine for pharmacotherapeutic information that is not published in biomedical journals.

PubMed

Do Pazo-Oubiña, F; Calvo Pita, C; Puigventós Latorre, F; Periañez-Párraga, L; Ventayol Bosch, P

2011-01-01

To identify publishers of pharmacotherapeutic information not found in biomedical journals that focuses on evaluating and providing advice on medicines and to develop a search engine to access this information. Compiling web sites that publish information on the rational use of medicines and have no commercial interests. Free-access web sites in Spanish, Galician, Catalan or English. Designing a search engine using the Google "custom search" application. Overall 159 internet addresses were compiled and were classified into 9 labels. We were able to recover the information from the selected sources using a search engine, which is called "AlquimiA" and available from http://www.elcomprimido.com/FARHSD/AlquimiA.htm. The main sources of pharmacotherapeutic information not published in biomedical journals were identified. The search engine is a useful tool for searching and accessing "grey literature" on the internet. Copyright © 2010 SEFH. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Carbon-Based Nanomaterials: Multi-Functional Materials for Biomedical Engineering

PubMed Central

Cha, Chaenyung; Shin, Su Ryon; Annabi, Nasim; Dokmeci, Mehmet R.; Khademhosseini, Ali

2013-01-01

Functional carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs) have become important due to their unique combinations of chemical and physical properties (i.e., thermal and electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength, and optical properties), extensive research efforts are being made to utilize these materials for various industrial applications, such as high-strength materials and electronics. These advantageous properties of CBNs are also actively investigated in several areas of biomedical engineering. This Perspective highlights different types of carbon-based nanomaterials currently used in biomedical applications. PMID:23560817

Carbon-based nanomaterials: multifunctional materials for biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Cha, Chaenyung; Shin, Su Ryon; Annabi, Nasim; Dokmeci, Mehmet R; Khademhosseini, Ali

2013-04-23

Functional carbon-based nanomaterials (CBNs) have become important due to their unique combinations of chemical and physical properties (i.e., thermal and electrical conductivity, high mechanical strength, and optical properties), and extensive research efforts are being made to utilize these materials for various industrial applications, such as high-strength materials and electronics. These advantageous properties of CBNs are also actively investigated in several areas of biomedical engineering. This Perspective highlights different types of carbon-based nanomaterials currently used in biomedical applications.

Development and Experimental Study of Education Through the Synergetic Training for the Engineering Enhanced Medicine “ESTEEM” in Tohoku University

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamano, Masahiro; Matsuki, Noriaki; Numayama, Keiko; Takeda, Motohiro; Hayasaka, Tomoaki; Ishikawa, Takuji; Yamaguchi, Takami

We developed new bio-medical engineering curriculum for industrial engineers, and we confirmed that the engineer's needs and the educative effects by holding a trail program. This study in Tohoku University was supported by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) . We named the curriculum as “ESTEEM” which is acronym of project title “Education through the Synergetic Training for the Engineering Enhanced Medicine” . In Tohoku University, the “REDEEM” curriculum which is an entry level course of bio-medical engineering for engineers has been already held. The positioning of “ESTEEM” program is an advanced course to enhance knowledge and experience in clinical point of view. The program is consisted of the problem based learning (PBL) style lectures, practical training, and observation learning in hospital. It is a unique opportunity to have instruction by doctors, from diagnosis to surgical operation, from traditional technique to front-line medical equipment. In this paper, we report and discuss on the progress of the new bio-medical engineering curriculum.

Micro-/nano-engineered cellular responses for soft tissue engineering and biomedical applications.

PubMed

Tay, Chor Yong; Irvine, Scott Alexander; Boey, Freddy Y C; Tan, Lay Poh; Venkatraman, Subbu

2011-05-23

The development of biomedical devices and reconstruction of functional ex vivo tissues often requires the need to fabricate biomimetic surfaces with features of sub-micrometer precision. This can be achieved with the advancements in micro-/nano-engineering techniques, allowing researchers to manipulate a plethora of cellular behaviors at the cell-biomaterial interface. Systematic studies conducted on these 2D engineered surfaces have unraveled numerous novel findings that can potentially be integrated as part of the design consideration for future 2D and 3D biomaterials and will no doubt greatly benefit tissue engineering. In this review, recent developments detailing the use of micro-/nano-engineering techniques to direct cellular orientation and function pertinent to soft tissue engineering will be highlighted. Particularly, this article aims to provide valuable insights into distinctive cell interactions and reactions to controlled surfaces, which can be exploited to understand the mechanisms of cell growth on micro-/nano-engineered interfaces, and to harness this knowledge to optimize the performance of 3D artificial soft tissue grafts and biomedical applications. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Hispanic Student-Scientists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

La Luz, 1977

1977-01-01

The Minority Biomedical Support Program provides grant money to educational institutions so they can better encourage and train their students to pursue successful careers in biomedical research. (NQ)

Bio-Inspired Extreme Wetting Surfaces for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Shin, Sera; Seo, Jungmok; Han, Heetak; Kang, Subin; Kim, Hyunchul; Lee, Taeyoon

2016-01-01

Biological creatures with unique surface wettability have long served as a source of inspiration for scientists and engineers. More specifically, materials exhibiting extreme wetting properties, such as superhydrophilic and superhydrophobic surfaces, have attracted considerable attention because of their potential use in various applications, such as self-cleaning fabrics, anti-fog windows, anti-corrosive coatings, drag-reduction systems, and efficient water transportation. In particular, the engineering of surface wettability by manipulating chemical properties and structure opens emerging biomedical applications ranging from high-throughput cell culture platforms to biomedical devices. This review describes design and fabrication methods for artificial extreme wetting surfaces. Next, we introduce some of the newer and emerging biomedical applications using extreme wetting surfaces. Current challenges and future prospects of the surfaces for potential biomedical applications are also addressed. PMID:28787916

Symposium on Career Opportunities in Biomedical and Public Health Sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sullivan, Walter W.

1997-01-01

The goal of the Symposium on Career Opportunities in Biomedical and Public Health Sciences is to encourage minority collegiate and junior and senior high school students to pursue careers in biomedical and public health sciences. The objectives of the Symposium are to: (1) Provide information to participants concerning biomedical and public health science careers in government, academe and industry; (2) Provide information to minority students about training activities necessary to pursue a biomedical or public health science career and the fiscal support that one can obtain for such training; and (3) Provide opportunities for participating minority biomedical and public health role models to interact with participants.

A Survey of the Job Profiles of Biomedical Informatics Graduates.

PubMed

Macedo, Alessandra A; Ruiz, Evandro E S; Baranauskas, José A

2016-10-17

In 2003, the University of São Paulo established the first Biomedical Informatics (BMI) undergraduate course in Brazil. Our mission is to provide undergraduate students with formal education on the fundamentals of BMI and its applied methods. This undergraduate course offers theoretical aspects, practical knowledge and scientifically oriented skills in the area of BMI, enab- ling students to contribute to research and methodical development in BMI. Course coordinators, professors and students frequently evaluate the BMI course and the curriculum to ensure that alumni receive quality higher education. This study investigates (i) the main job activities undertake by USP BMI graduates, (ii) subjects that are fundamental important for graduates to pursue a career in BMI, and (iii) the course quality perceived by the alumni. Use of a structured questionnaire to conduct a survey involving all the BMI graduates who received their Bachelor degree before July, 2015 (attempted n = 205). One hundred and forty-five graduates (71 %) answered the questionnaire. Nine out of ten of our former students currently work as informaticians. Seventy-six graduates (52 %) work within the biomedical informatics field. Fifty-five graduates (38 %) work outside the biomedical informatics field, but they work in other IT areas. Ten graduates (7 %) do not work with BMI or any other informatics activities, and four (3 %) are presently unemployed. Among the 145 surveyed BMI graduates, 46 (32 %) and seven (5 %) hold a Master's degree and a PhD degree, respectively. Database Systems, Software Engineering, Introduction to Computer Science, Object-Oriented Programming, and Data Structures are regarded as the most important subjects during the higher education course. The majority of the graduates (105 or 72 %) are satisfied with the BMI education and training they received during the undergraduate course. More than half of the graduates from our BMI course work in their primary education area. Besides technical adequacy, the diverse job profiles, and the high level of satisfaction of our graduates indicate the importance of undergraduate courses specialized in the BMI domain are of utmost importance.

Minority undergraduate programs intended to increase participation in biomedical careers.

PubMed

MacLachlan, Anne J

2012-01-01

This article reviews a selection of undergraduate programs intended to increase successful minority participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors, potentially leading to biomedical careers. The object is to examine their structure, consider how well they address the issues of the target population, and assess the extent to which they have met/meet their goals. As a means of conducting this review, the first step is to examine the concepts used as the building blocks for program design. These concepts are found in a shared, yet often undefined, vocabulary used in most undergraduate programs for minority students. The hypothesis is that a shared vocabulary obscures a broad range of meaning and interpretation that has serious ramifications affecting student success. How these building blocks are understood and implemented strongly reflects the institution where the program is housed. The discussion further considers the nature of a number of programs created by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health specifically for underrepresented minority students and examines one program in detail, the University of California Berkeley's National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Program in Molecular, Cell, and Evolutionary Biology. The characteristics of federally organized programs and the Research Experience for Undergraduates are contrasted with 2 very successful student-centered local programs based on a different conceptual model. © 2012 Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Exploiting Novel Calcium-Mediated Apoptotic Processes for the Treatment of Human Breast Cancers with Elevated Nqo1 Levels

DTIC Science & Technology

2008-03-01

in β-Lapachone-induced programmed necrosis. Biomedical Graduate Student Symposium, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH April 2002-06.  o...of β- lapachone-induced cell death” October, 2005  o The Vance Lemmon Poster Award, Biomedical Graduate Student Symposium, Case Western Reserve...cell death” April, 2005  o The Marcus Singer Poster Award, Biomedical Graduate Student Symposium, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH for

Engineering and Application of Zinc Finger Proteins and TALEs for Biomedical Research.

PubMed

Kim, Moon-Soo; Kini, Anu Ganesh

2017-08-01

Engineered DNA-binding domains provide a powerful technology for numerous biomedical studies due to their ability to recognize specific DNA sequences. Zinc fingers (ZF) are one of the most common DNA-binding domains and have been extensively studied for a variety of applications, such as gene regulation, genome engineering and diagnostics. Another novel DNA-binding domain known as a transcriptional activator-like effector (TALE) has been more recently discovered, which has a previously undescribed DNA-binding mode. Due to their modular architecture and flexibility, TALEs have been rapidly developed into artificial gene targeting reagents. Here, we describe the methods used to design these DNA-binding proteins and their key applications in biomedical research.

From gene to protein: A 3-week intensive course in molecular biology for physical scientists.

PubMed

Nadeau, Jay L

2009-07-01

This article describes a 3-week intensive molecular biology methods course based upon fluorescent proteins, which is successfully taught at the McGill University to advanced undergraduates and graduates in physics, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine. No previous knowledge of biological terminology or methods is expected, so the material could readily be adapted to earlier undergraduates or students in other fields. The course emphasizes hands-on experience with one half-hour of lecture and 3 and a half hours of laboratory 4 days per week, for a total of 39 hours. The materials are simple and low in cost and all software used is free, making the budget accessible to small universities and community colleges that possess basic teaching wet labs. Conceptual understanding is reinforced with lab reports and an independent final paper on a subject of the student's choice. The final paper describes a possible thesis project, not necessarily the student's own, with assessment based upon grasping of key concepts and methods of molecular biology. Copyright © 2009 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

BUILDing BLaST: promoting rural students' biomedical research careers using a culturally responsive, one health approach.

PubMed

Taylor, Barbara E; Reynolds, Arleigh J; Etz, Kathy E; MacCalla, Nicole M G; Cotter, Paul A; DeRuyter, Tiffany L; Hueffer, Karsten

2017-01-01

Most postsecondary institutions in the state of Alaska (USA) have a broad mission to serve diverse students, many of whom come from schools in rural villages that are accessible only by plane, boat, or snowmobile. The major research university, the University of Alaska in Fairbanks (UAF), serves a population whereby 40% are from groups recognized as underrepresented in the biomedical workforce. The purpose of this article is to describe the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD)-supported program in the state of Alaska that seeks to engage students from rural areas with a culturally relevant approach that is centered on the One Health paradigm, integrating human, animal, and environmental health. The Biomedical Learning and Student Training (BLaST) program distinguished by broad themes that address recruitment, retention, and success of students in biomedical programs, especially for students from rural backgrounds. Targeted rural outreach emphasizes that biomedical research includes research on the integration of human, animal, and environmental health. This One Health perspective gives personal relevance and connection to biomedical research. This outreach is expected to benefit student recruitment, as well as foster family and community support for pursuit of college degrees. BLaST promotes integration of research into undergraduate curricula through curriculum development, and by creating a new class of instructors, laboratory research and teaching technicians, who provide research mentorship, course instruction, and comprehensive advising. Finally, BLaST facilitates early and sustained undergraduate research experiences in collaborations with graduate students and faculty. BLaST's approach is highly adapted to the Alaskan educational and physical environment, but components and concepts could be adapted to other rural areas as a means to engage students from rural backgrounds, who often have a closer relationship with the natural environment than urban students.

Alliance for Computational Science Collaboration HBCU Partnership at Fisk University. Final Report 2001

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Collins, W. E.

2004-08-16

Computational Science plays a big role in research and development in mathematics, science, engineering and biomedical disciplines. The Alliance for Computational Science Collaboration (ACSC) has the goal of training African-American and other minority scientists in the computational science field for eventual employment with the Department of Energy (DOE). The involvements of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the Alliance provide avenues for producing future DOE African-American scientists. Fisk University has been participating in this program through grants from the DOE. The DOE grant supported computational science activities at Fisk University. The research areas included energy related projects, distributed computing,more » visualization of scientific systems and biomedical computing. Students' involvement in computational science research included undergraduate summer research at Oak Ridge National Lab, on-campus research involving the participation of undergraduates, participation of undergraduate and faculty members in workshops, and mentoring of students. These activities enhanced research and education in computational science, thereby adding to Fisk University's spectrum of research and educational capabilities. Among the successes of the computational science activities are the acceptance of three undergraduate students to graduate schools with full scholarships beginning fall 2002 (one for master degree program and two for Doctoral degree program).« less

Biomedical Engineering: A Compendium of Research Training Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Inst. of General Medical Sciences (NIH), Bethesda, MD.

This document was prepared to provide a comprehensive view of the programs in biomedical engineering in existence in 1969. These programs are supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and are located at 18 universities. This compendium provides information as to the intent and content of these programs from data provided by…

Engineering Stem Cells for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Yin, Perry T.; Han, Edward

2018-01-01

Stem cells are characterized by a number of useful properties, including their ability to migrate, differentiate, and secrete a variety of therapeutic molecules such as immunomodulatory factors. As such, numerous pre-clinical and clinical studies have utilized stem cell-based therapies and demonstrated their tremendous potential for the treatment of various human diseases and disorders. Recently, efforts have focused on engineering stem cells in order to further enhance their innate abilities as well as to confer them with new functionalities, which can then be used in various biomedical applications. These engineered stem cells can take on a number of forms. For instance, engineered stem cells encompass the genetic modification of stem cells as well as the use of stem cells for gene delivery, nanoparticle loading and delivery, and even small molecule drug delivery. The present Review gives an in-depth account of the current status of engineered stem cells, including potential cell sources, the most common methods used to engineer stem cells, and the utilization of engineered stem cells in various biomedical applications, with a particular focus on tissue regeneration, the treatment of immunodeficiency diseases, and cancer. PMID:25772134

Recent advances in engineering microparticles and their nascent utilization in biomedical delivery and diagnostic applications.

PubMed

Choi, Andrew; Seo, Kyoung Duck; Kim, Do Wan; Kim, Bum Chang; Kim, Dong Sung

2017-02-14

Complex microparticles (MPs) bearing unique characteristics such as well-tailored sizes, various morphologies, and multi-compartments have been attempted to be produced by many researchers in the past decades. However, a conventionally used method of fabricating MPs, emulsion polymerization, has a limitation in achieving the aforementioned characteristics and several approaches such as the microfluidics-assisted (droplet-based microfluidics and flow lithography-based microfluidics), electrohydrodynamics (EHD)-based, centrifugation-based, and template-based methods have been recently suggested to overcome this limitation. The outstanding features of complex MPs engineered through these suggested methods have provided new opportunities for MPs to be applied in a wider range of applications including cell carriers, drug delivery agents, active pigments for display, microsensors, interface stabilizers, and catalyst substrates. Overall, the engineered MPs expose their potential particularly in the field of biomedical engineering as the increased complexity in the engineered MPs fulfills well the requirements of the high-end applications. This review outlines the current trends of newly developed techniques used for engineered MPs fabrication and focuses on the current state of engineered MPs in biomedical applications.

Robot-aided electrospinning toward intelligent biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Tan, Rong; Yang, Xiong; Shen, Yajing

2017-01-01

The rapid development of robotics offers new opportunities for the traditional biofabrication in higher accuracy and controllability, which provides great potentials for the intelligent biomedical engineering. This paper reviews the state of the art of robotics in a widely used biomaterial fabrication process, i.e., electrospinning, including its working principle, main applications, challenges, and prospects. First, the principle and technique of electrospinning are introduced by categorizing it to melt electrospinning, solution electrospinning, and near-field electrospinning. Then, the applications of electrospinning in biomedical engineering are introduced briefly from the aspects of drug delivery, tissue engineering, and wound dressing. After that, we conclude the existing problems in traditional electrospinning such as low production, rough nanofibers, and uncontrolled morphology, and then discuss how those problems are addressed by robotics via four case studies. Lastly, the challenges and outlooks of robotics in electrospinning are discussed and prospected.

First experience with a new biomedical engineering program in Slovenia established following the TEMPUS IV CRH-BME joint project guidelines.

PubMed

Jarm, Tomaz; Miklavcic, Damijan

2014-01-01

A new study program of biomedical engineering was recently established at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. It is based on the long-lasting tradition of education in the field of BME at the host institution and is built on the BME areas in which the research groups of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering have been traditionally successful. The program was prepared in accordance with the recommendations of the TEMPUS IV CRH-BME Project consortium.

A review of engineered zirconia surfaces in biomedical applications

PubMed Central

Yin, Ling; Nakanishi, Yoshitaka; Alao, Abdur-Rasheed; Song, Xiao-Fei; Abduo, Jaafar; Zhang, Yu

2017-01-01

Zirconia is widely used for load-bearing functional structures in medicine and dentistry. The quality of engineered zirconia surfaces determines not only the fracture and fatigue behaviour but also the low temperature degradation (ageing sensitivity), bacterial colonization and bonding strength of zirconia devices. This paper reviews the current manufacturing techniques for fabrication of zirconia surfaces in biomedical applications, particularly, in tooth and joint replacements, and influences of the zirconia surface quality on their functional behaviours. It discusses emerging manufacturing techniques and challenges for fabrication of zirconia surfaces in biomedical applications. PMID:29130030

Alginate: properties and biomedical applications

PubMed Central

Lee, Kuen Yong; Mooney, David J.

2011-01-01

Alginate is a biomaterial that has found numerous applications in biomedical science and engineering due to its favorable properties, including biocompatibility and ease of gelation. Alginate hydrogels have been particularly attractive in wound healing, drug delivery, and tissue engineering applications to date, as these gels retain structural similarity to the extracellular matrices in tissues and can be manipulated to play several critical roles. This review will provide a comprehensive overview of general properties of alginate and its hydrogels, their biomedical applications, and suggest new perspectives for future studies with these polymers. PMID:22125349

Prevalence of Hepatitis B surface antigen among biomedical students of African descent in Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria.

PubMed

Okwesili, A N; Onuigwe, F U; Ibrahim, K; Buhari, H; Ibrahim, A; Jafaru, H; Erhabor, O; Onuigwe, F U; Isaac, Z; Ahmed, M H; Mainasara, M Y; Adias, T C; Yeldu, M H; Uko, E K; Udoma, F

2015-12-23

Hepatitis B (HB) is a serious global public health problem that put health professionals particularly at risk. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) among Biomedical Students of African descent attending Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto in North-Western Nigeria. The Onsite HBsAg (CTK Biotech, USA) was used to detect the presence of hepatitis B surface antigen. We tested 186 consecutively-recruited students consisting of 147 males and 39 females aged 18-35 years (mean age 26 ± 2.0 years). Of the 186 students tested, 25 (13.4%) were positive for HBsAg. The prevalence of HBsAg was significantly higher among students in the 21-25 years age group. Hepatitis B vaccination uptake among students was 7%. Majority of subjects were single 173(93.1%) compared to married 13 (6.9%). Ethnic distribution of the subjects indicated that 104(55.9%) were Hausa compared to Yoruba 32 (17.2%), other ethnic groups 21(11.3%), Fulani 20(10.8%) and Igbo 9(4.8%). This study indicates a high prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection among Biomedical students in Sokoto, North Western, Nigeria. Finding from this study is enough justification for the implementation of a policy to routinely test students entering into the biomedical professions for Hepatitis B virus infection. There is the need to provide hepatitis B vaccination universally to all those who are found negative prior to commencement of their biomedical training. There is also need to educate students entering biomedical professions and healthcare workers on the modes of transmission and prevention, importance of being compliant with protective vaccination as well as the need to observe universal precaution and infection control guidelines during their training and future professional practice.

Biomedical, Artificial Intelligence, and DNA Computing Photonics Applications and Web Engineering, Wilga, May 2012

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Romaniuk, Ryszard S.

2012-05-01

This paper is the fifth part (out of five) of the research survey of WILGA Symposium work, May 2012 Edition, concerned with Biomedical, Artificial Intelligence and DNA Computing technologies. It presents a digest of chosen technical work results shown by young researchers from different technical universities from this country during the Jubilee XXXth SPIE-IEEE Wilga 2012, May Edition, symposium on Photonics and Web Engineering. Topical tracks of the symposium embraced, among others, nanomaterials and nanotechnologies for photonics, sensory and nonlinear optical fibers, object oriented design of hardware, photonic metrology, optoelectronics and photonics applications, photonics-electronics co-design, optoelectronic and electronic systems for astronomy and high energy physics experiments, JET tokamak and pi-of-the sky experiments development. The symposium is an annual summary in the development of numerable Ph.D. theses carried out in this country in the area of advanced electronic and photonic systems. It is also a great occasion for SPIE, IEEE, OSA and PSP students to meet together in a large group spanning the whole country with guests from this part of Europe. A digest of Wilga references is presented [1-270].

Rational engineering of physicochemical properties of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with nanotoxicological perspectives.

PubMed

Navya, P N; Daima, Hemant Kumar

2016-01-01

Innovative engineered nanomaterials are at the leading edge of rapidly emerging fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. Meticulous synthesis, unique physicochemical properties, manifestation of chemical or biological moieties on the surface of materials make engineered nanostructures suitable for a variety of biomedical applications. Besides, tailored nanomaterials exhibit entirely novel therapeutic applications with better functionality, sensitivity, efficiency and specificity due to their customized unique physicochemical and surface properties. Additionally, such designer made nanomaterials has potential to generate series of interactions with various biological entities including DNA, proteins, membranes, cells and organelles at nano-bio interface. These nano-bio interactions are driven by colloidal forces and predominantly depend on the dynamic physicochemical and surface properties of nanomaterials. Nevertheless, recent development and atomic scale tailoring of various physical, chemical and surface properties of nanomaterials is promising to dictate their interaction in anticipated manner with biological entities for biomedical applications. As a result, rationally designed nanomaterials are in extensive demand for bio-molecular detection and diagnostics, therapeutics, drug and gene delivery, fluorescent labelling, tissue engineering, biochemical sensing and other pharmaceuticals applications. However, toxicity and risk associated with engineered nanomaterials is rather unclear or not well understood; which is gaining considerable attention and the field of nanotoxicology is evolving promptly. Therefore, this review explores current knowledge of articulate engineering of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with special attention on potential toxicological perspectives.

Rational engineering of physicochemical properties of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with nanotoxicological perspectives

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Navya, P. N.; Daima, Hemant Kumar

2016-02-01

Innovative engineered nanomaterials are at the leading edge of rapidly emerging fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. Meticulous synthesis, unique physicochemical properties, manifestation of chemical or biological moieties on the surface of materials make engineered nanostructures suitable for a variety of biomedical applications. Besides, tailored nanomaterials exhibit entirely novel therapeutic applications with better functionality, sensitivity, efficiency and specificity due to their customized unique physicochemical and surface properties. Additionally, such designer made nanomaterials has potential to generate series of interactions with various biological entities including DNA, proteins, membranes, cells and organelles at nano-bio interface. These nano-bio interactions are driven by colloidal forces and predominantly depend on the dynamic physicochemical and surface properties of nanomaterials. Nevertheless, recent development and atomic scale tailoring of various physical, chemical and surface properties of nanomaterials is promising to dictate their interaction in anticipated manner with biological entities for biomedical applications. As a result, rationally designed nanomaterials are in extensive demand for bio-molecular detection and diagnostics, therapeutics, drug and gene delivery, fluorescent labelling, tissue engineering, biochemical sensing and other pharmaceuticals applications. However, toxicity and risk associated with engineered nanomaterials is rather unclear or not well understood; which is gaining considerable attention and the field of nanotoxicology is evolving promptly. Therefore, this review explores current knowledge of articulate engineering of nanomaterials for biomedical applications with special attention on potential toxicological perspectives.

[Flexible print circuit technology application in biomedical engineering].

PubMed

Jiang, Lihua; Cao, Yi; Zheng, Xiaolin

2013-06-01

Flexible print circuit (FPC) technology has been widely applied in variety of electric circuits with high precision due to its advantages, such as low-cost, high specific fabrication ability, and good flexibility, etc. Recently, this technology has also been used in biomedical engineering, especially in the development of microfluidic chip and microelectrode array. The high specific fabrication can help making microelectrode and other micro-structure equipment. And good flexibility allows the micro devices based on FPC technique to be easily packaged with other parts. In addition, it also reduces the damage of microelectrodes to the tissue. In this paper, the application of FPC technology in biomedical engineering is introduced. Moreover, the important parameters of FPC technique and the development trend of prosperous applications is also discussed.

Using a Search Engine-Based Mutually Reinforcing Approach to Assess the Semantic Relatedness of Biomedical Terms

PubMed Central

Hsu, Yi-Yu; Chen, Hung-Yu; Kao, Hung-Yu

2013-01-01

Background Determining the semantic relatedness of two biomedical terms is an important task for many text-mining applications in the biomedical field. Previous studies, such as those using ontology-based and corpus-based approaches, measured semantic relatedness by using information from the structure of biomedical literature, but these methods are limited by the small size of training resources. To increase the size of training datasets, the outputs of search engines have been used extensively to analyze the lexical patterns of biomedical terms. Methodology/Principal Findings In this work, we propose the Mutually Reinforcing Lexical Pattern Ranking (ReLPR) algorithm for learning and exploring the lexical patterns of synonym pairs in biomedical text. ReLPR employs lexical patterns and their pattern containers to assess the semantic relatedness of biomedical terms. By combining sentence structures and the linking activities between containers and lexical patterns, our algorithm can explore the correlation between two biomedical terms. Conclusions/Significance The average correlation coefficient of the ReLPR algorithm was 0.82 for various datasets. The results of the ReLPR algorithm were significantly superior to those of previous methods. PMID:24348899

Academic program models for undergraduate biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Krishnan, Shankar M

2014-01-01

There is a proliferation of medical devices across the globe for the diagnosis and therapy of diseases. Biomedical engineering (BME) plays a significant role in healthcare and advancing medical technologies thus creating a substantial demand for biomedical engineers at undergraduate and graduate levels. There has been a surge in undergraduate programs due to increasing demands from the biomedical industries to cover many of their segments from bench to bedside. With the requirement of multidisciplinary training within allottable duration, it is indeed a challenge to design a comprehensive standardized undergraduate BME program to suit the needs of educators across the globe. This paper's objective is to describe three major models of undergraduate BME programs and their curricular requirements, with relevant recommendations to be applicable in institutions of higher education located in varied resource settings. Model 1 is based on programs to be offered in large research-intensive universities with multiple focus areas. The focus areas depend on the institution's research expertise and training mission. Model 2 has basic segments similar to those of Model 1, but the focus areas are limited due to resource constraints. In this model, co-op/internship in hospitals or medical companies is included which prepares the graduates for the work place. In Model 3, students are trained to earn an Associate Degree in the initial two years and they are trained for two more years to be BME's or BME Technologists. This model is well suited for the resource-poor countries. All three models must be designed to meet applicable accreditation requirements. The challenges in designing undergraduate BME programs include manpower, facility and funding resource requirements and time constraints. Each academic institution has to carefully analyze its short term and long term requirements. In conclusion, three models for BME programs are described based on large universities, colleges, and community colleges. Model 1 is suitable for research-intensive universities. Models 2 and 3 can be successfully implemented in higher education institutions with low and limited resources with appropriate guidance and support from international organizations. The models will continually evolve mainly to meet the industry needs.

Current Progress of Genetically Engineered Pig Models for Biomedical Research

PubMed Central

Gün, Gökhan

2014-01-01

Abstract The first transgenic pigs were generated for agricultural purposes about three decades ago. Since then, the micromanipulation techniques of pig oocytes and embryos expanded from pronuclear injection of foreign DNA to somatic cell nuclear transfer, intracytoplasmic sperm injection-mediated gene transfer, lentiviral transduction, and cytoplasmic injection. Mechanistically, the passive transgenesis approach based on random integration of foreign DNA was developed to active genetic engineering techniques based on the transient activity of ectopic enzymes, such as transposases, recombinases, and programmable nucleases. Whole-genome sequencing and annotation of advanced genome maps of the pig complemented these developments. The full implementation of these tools promises to immensely increase the efficiency and, in parallel, to reduce the costs for the generation of genetically engineered pigs. Today, the major application of genetically engineered pigs is found in the field of biomedical disease modeling. It is anticipated that genetically engineered pigs will increasingly be used in biomedical research, since this model shows several similarities to humans with regard to physiology, metabolism, genome organization, pathology, and aging. PMID:25469311

A tutorial on information retrieval: basic terms and concepts

PubMed Central

Zhou, Wei; Smalheiser, Neil R; Yu, Clement

2006-01-01

This informal tutorial is intended for investigators and students who would like to understand the workings of information retrieval systems, including the most frequently used search engines: PubMed and Google. Having a basic knowledge of the terms and concepts of information retrieval should improve the efficiency and productivity of searches. As well, this knowledge is needed in order to follow current research efforts in biomedical information retrieval and text mining that are developing new systems not only for finding documents on a given topic, but extracting and integrating knowledge across documents. PMID:16722601

Using Biomedically Relevant Multimedia Content in an Introductory Physics Course for Life Science and Pre-Health Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mylott, Elliot; Kutschera, Ellynne; Dunlap, Justin C.; Christensen, Warren; Widenhorn, Ralf

2016-01-01

We will describe a one-quarter pilot algebra-based introductory physics course for pre-health and life science majors. The course features videos with biomedical experts and cogent biomedically inspired physics content. The materials were used in a flipped classroom as well as an all-online environment where students interacted with multimedia…

[Scientometrics and bibliometrics of biomedical engineering periodicals and papers].

PubMed

Zhao, Ping; Xu, Ping; Li, Bingyan; Wang, Zhengrong

2003-09-01

This investigation was made to reveal the current status, research trend and research level of biomedical engineering in Chinese mainland by means of scientometrics and to assess the quality of the four domestic publications by bibliometrics. We identified all articles of four related publications by searching Chinese and foreign databases from 1997 to 2001. All articles collected or cited by these databases were searched and statistically analyzed for finding out the relevant distributions, including databases, years, authors, institutions, subject headings and subheadings. The source of sustentation funds and the related articles were analyzed too. The results showed that two journals were cited by two foreign databases and five Chinese databases simultaneously. The output of Journal of Biomedical Engineering was the highest. Its quantity of original papers cited by EI, CA and the totality of papers sponsored by funds were higher than those of the others, but the quantity and percentage per year of biomedical articles cited by EI were decreased in all. Inland core authors and institutions had come into being in the field of biomedical engineering. Their research topics were mainly concentrated on ten subject headings which included biocompatible materials, computer-assisted signal processing, electrocardiography, computer-assisted image processing, biomechanics, algorithms, electroencephalography, automatic data processing, mechanical stress, hemodynamics, mathematical computing, microcomputers, theoretical models, etc. The main subheadings were concentrated on instrumentation, physiopathology, diagnosis, therapy, ultrasonography, physiology, analysis, surgery, pathology, method, etc.

Cluster-Based Query Expansion Using Language Modeling for Biomedical Literature Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xu, Xuheng

2011-01-01

The tremendously huge volume of biomedical literature, scientists' specific information needs, long terms of multiples words, and fundamental problems of synonym and polysemy have been challenging issues facing the biomedical information retrieval community researchers. Search engines have significantly improved the efficiency and effectiveness of…

Trends in Biomedical Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peppas, Nicholas A.; Mallinson, Richard G.

1982-01-01

An analysis of trends in biomedical education within chemical education is presented. Data used for the analysis included: type/level of course, subjects taught, and textbook preferences. Results among others of the 1980 survey indicate that 28 out of 79 schools responding offer at least one course in biomedical engineering. (JN)

From Bench to Bedside: A communal utility value intervention to enhance students’ biomedical science motivation

PubMed Central

Brown, Elizabeth R.; Smith, Jessi L.; Thoman, Dustin B.; Allen, Jill M.; Muragishi, Gregg

2015-01-01

Motivating students to pursue science careers is a top priority among many science educators. We add to the growing literature by examining the impact of a utility value intervention to enhance student’s perceptions that biomedical science affords important utility work values. Using an expectancy-value perspective we identify and test two types of utility value: communal (other-oriented) and agentic (self-oriented). The culture of science is replete with examples emphasizing high levels of agentic value, but communal values are often (stereotyped as) absent from science. However, people in general want an occupation that has communal utility. We predicted and found that an intervention emphasizing the communal utility value of biomedical research increased students’ motivation for biomedical science (Studies 1–3). We refined whether different types of communal utility value (working with, helping, and forming relationships with others) might be more or less important, demonstrating that helping others was an especially important predictor of student motivation (Study 2). Adding agentic utility value to biomedical research did not further increase student motivation (Study 3). Furthermore, the communal value intervention indirectly impacted students’ motivation because students believed that biomedical research was communal and thus subsequently more important (Studies 1–3). This is key, because enhancing student communal value beliefs about biomedical research (Studies 1–3) and science (Study 4) was associated both with momentary increases in motivation in experimental settings (Studies 1–3) and increased motivation over time among students highly identified with biomedicine (Study 4). We discuss recommendations for science educators, practitioners, and faculty mentors who want to broaden participation in science. PMID:26617417

Encouraging entrepreneurship in university labs: Research activities, research outputs, and early doctorate careers

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

This paper investigates how the encouragement of entrepreneurship within university research labs relates with research activities, research outputs, and early doctorate careers. Utilizing a panel survey of 6,840 science & engineering doctoral students at 39 R1 research universities, this study shows that entrepreneurship is widely encouraged across university research labs, ranging from 54% in biomedical engineering to 18% in particle physics, while only a small share of labs openly discourage entrepreneurship, from approximately 3% in engineering to approximately 12% in the life sciences. Within fields, there is no difference between labs that encourage entrepreneurship and those that do not with respect to basic research activity and the number of publications. At the same time, labs that encourage entrepreneurship are significantly more likely to report invention disclosures, particularly in engineering where such labs are 41% more likely to disclose inventions. With respect to career pathways, PhDs students in labs that encourage entrepreneurship do not differ from other PhDs in their interest in academic careers, but they are 87% more likely to be interested in careers in entrepreneurship and 44% more likely to work in a startup after graduation. These results persist even when accounting for individuals’ pre-PhD interest in entrepreneurship and the encouragement of other non-academic industry careers. PMID:28178270

Encouraging entrepreneurship in university labs: Research activities, research outputs, and early doctorate careers.

PubMed

Roach, Michael

2017-01-01

This paper investigates how the encouragement of entrepreneurship within university research labs relates with research activities, research outputs, and early doctorate careers. Utilizing a panel survey of 6,840 science & engineering doctoral students at 39 R1 research universities, this study shows that entrepreneurship is widely encouraged across university research labs, ranging from 54% in biomedical engineering to 18% in particle physics, while only a small share of labs openly discourage entrepreneurship, from approximately 3% in engineering to approximately 12% in the life sciences. Within fields, there is no difference between labs that encourage entrepreneurship and those that do not with respect to basic research activity and the number of publications. At the same time, labs that encourage entrepreneurship are significantly more likely to report invention disclosures, particularly in engineering where such labs are 41% more likely to disclose inventions. With respect to career pathways, PhDs students in labs that encourage entrepreneurship do not differ from other PhDs in their interest in academic careers, but they are 87% more likely to be interested in careers in entrepreneurship and 44% more likely to work in a startup after graduation. These results persist even when accounting for individuals' pre-PhD interest in entrepreneurship and the encouragement of other non-academic industry careers.

Annual Conference Abstracts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Journal of Engineering Education, 1972

1972-01-01

Includes abstracts of papers presented at the 80th Annual Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education. The broad areas include aerospace, affiliate and associate member council, agricultural engineering, biomedical engineering, continuing engineering studies, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computers, cooperative…

Pharmaceutical and biomedical applications of surface engineered carbon nanotubes.

PubMed

Mehra, Neelesh Kumar; Jain, Keerti; Jain, Narendra Kumar

2015-06-01

Surface engineered carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are attracting recent attention of scientists owing to their vivid biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. The focus of this review is to highlight the important role of surface engineered CNTs in the highly challenging but rewarding area of nanotechnology. The major strength of this review lies in highlighting the exciting applications of CNTs to boost the research efforts, which unfortunately are otherwise scattered in the literature making the reading non-coherent and non-homogeneous. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationship of biomedical science content acquisition performance to students' level of PBL group interaction: are students learning during PBL group?

PubMed

Romito, Laura M; Eckert, George J

2011-05-01

This study assessed biomedical science content acquisition from problem-based learning (PBL) and its relationship to students' level of group interaction. We hypothesized that learning in preparation for exams results primarily from individual study of post-case learning objectives and that outcomes would be unrelated to students' group involvement. During dental curricular years 1 and 2, student-generated biomedical learning issues (LIs) were identified from six randomly chosen PBL cases. Knowledge and application of case concepts were assessed with quizzes based on the identified LIs prior to dissemination of the learning objectives. Students and facilitators were surveyed on students' level of group involvement for the assessed LI topics. Year 1 students had significantly higher assessment scores (p=0.0001). For both student classes, means were significantly higher for the recall item (Q1) than for the application item (Q2). Q1 scores increased along with the student's reported role for Year 1 (p=0.04). However, there was no relationship between the student's reported role and Q1 for Year 2 (p=0.20). There was no relationship between the student's reported role and Q2 for Year 1 (p=0.09) or Year 2 (p=0.19). This suggests that students' level of group involvement on the biomedical learning issues did not significantly impact students' assessment performance.

Optimizing biomedical science learning in a veterinary curriculum: a review.

PubMed

Warren, Amy L; Donnon, Tyrone

2013-01-01

As veterinary medical curricula evolve, the time dedicated to biomedical science teaching, as well as the role of biomedical science knowledge in veterinary education, has been scrutinized. Aside from being mandated by accrediting bodies, biomedical science knowledge plays an important role in developing clinical, diagnostic, and therapeutic reasoning skills in the application of clinical skills, in supporting evidence-based veterinary practice and life-long learning, and in advancing biomedical knowledge and comparative medicine. With an increasing volume and fast pace of change in biomedical knowledge, as well as increased demands on curricular time, there has been pressure to make biomedical science education efficient and relevant for veterinary medicine. This has lead to a shift in biomedical education from fact-based, teacher-centered and discipline-based teaching to applicable, student-centered, integrated teaching. This movement is supported by adult learning theories and is thought to enhance students' transference of biomedical science into their clinical practice. The importance of biomedical science in veterinary education and the theories of biomedical science learning will be discussed in this article. In addition, we will explore current advances in biomedical teaching methodologies that are aimed to maximize knowledge retention and application for clinical veterinary training and practice.

Engineering artificial machines from designable DNA materials for biomedical applications.

PubMed

Qi, Hao; Huang, Guoyou; Han, Yulong; Zhang, Xiaohui; Li, Yuhui; Pingguan-Murphy, Belinda; Lu, Tian Jian; Xu, Feng; Wang, Lin

2015-06-01

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) emerges as building bricks for the fabrication of nanostructure with complete artificial architecture and geometry. The amazing ability of DNA in building two- and three-dimensional structures raises the possibility of developing smart nanomachines with versatile controllability for various applications. Here, we overviewed the recent progresses in engineering DNA machines for specific bioengineering and biomedical applications.

Computer Assisted Learning for Biomedical Engineering Education: Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2001-10-25

COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING FOR BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION : TOOLS Ayhan ÝSTANBULLU1 Ýnan GÜLER2 1 Department of Electronic...of Technical Education , Gazi University, 06500 Ankara, Türkiye Abstract- Interactive multimedia learning environment is being proposed...Assisted Learning (CAL) are given and some tools used in this area are explained. Together with the developments in the area of distance education

Engineering Artificial Machines from Designable DNA Materials for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Huang, Guoyou; Han, Yulong; Zhang, Xiaohui; Li, Yuhui; Pingguan-Murphy, Belinda; Lu, Tian Jian; Xu, Feng

2015-01-01

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) emerges as building bricks for the fabrication of nanostructure with complete artificial architecture and geometry. The amazing ability of DNA in building two- and three-dimensional structures raises the possibility of developing smart nanomachines with versatile controllability for various applications. Here, we overviewed the recent progresses in engineering DNA machines for specific bioengineering and biomedical applications. PMID:25547514

Engineering Stem Cells for Biomedical Applications.

PubMed

Yin, Perry T; Han, Edward; Lee, Ki-Bum

2016-01-07

Stem cells are characterized by a number of useful properties, including their ability to migrate, differentiate, and secrete a variety of therapeutic molecules such as immunomodulatory factors. As such, numerous pre-clinical and clinical studies have utilized stem cell-based therapies and demonstrated their tremendous potential for the treatment of various human diseases and disorders. Recently, efforts have focused on engineering stem cells in order to further enhance their innate abilities as well as to confer them with new functionalities, which can then be used in various biomedical applications. These engineered stem cells can take on a number of forms. For instance, engineered stem cells encompass the genetic modification of stem cells as well as the use of stem cells for gene delivery, nanoparticle loading and delivery, and even small molecule drug delivery. The present Review gives an in-depth account of the current status of engineered stem cells, including potential cell sources, the most common methods used to engineer stem cells, and the utilization of engineered stem cells in various biomedical applications, with a particular focus on tissue regeneration, the treatment of immunodeficiency diseases, and cancer. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Hypogravity Research and Educational Parabolic Flight Activities Conducted in Barcelona: a new Hub of Innovation in Europe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perez-Poch, Antoni; González, Daniel Ventura; López, David

2016-12-01

We report on different research and educational activities related to parabolic flights conducted in Barcelona since 2008. We use a CAP10B single-engine aerobatic aircraft flying out of Sabadell Airport and operating in visual flight conditions providing up to 8 seconds of hypogravity for each parabola. Aside from biomedical experiments being conducted, different student teams have flown in parabolic flights in the framework of the international contest `Barcelona Zero-G Challenge', and have published their results in relevant symposiums and scientific journals. The platform can certainly be a good testbed for a proof-of-concept before accessing other microgravity platforms, and has proved to be excellent for motivational student campaigns.

Predicting Transition and Adjustment to College: Biomedical and Behavioral Science Aspirants' and Minority Students' First Year of College

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hurtado, Sylvia; Han, June C.; Saenz, Victor B.; Espinosa, Lorelle L.; Cabrera, Nolan L.; Cerna, Oscar S.

2007-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore key factors that impact the college transition of aspiring underrepresented minority students in the biomedical and behavioral sciences, in comparison with White, Asian students and non-science minority students. We examined successful management of the academic environment and sense of belonging during the…

Educating the engineers of 2020: An outcomes-based typology of engineering undergraduates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knight, David B.

Members of government and industry have called for greater emphasis within U.S. colleges and universities on producing engineers who can enter and advance a more competitive, globally connected workforce. Looking toward this future, engineers will need to exhibit strong analytical skills as in the past, but they also will need to be proficient in a cadre of new abilities to compete. This study examines, in combination, an array of knowledge and skills aligned with the National Academy of Engineering's "engineer of 2020." The study has two major goals. The first is to develop a typology of engineering students based on the learning outcomes associated with the engineer of E2020. The second is to understand the educational experiences that distinguish these groups of students who resemble, more or less, the engineer of 2020. This approach acknowledges that engineering graduates need a complex skill set to succeed in the new global economy; it is the combination of skills associated with the engineer of 2020, not the individual skills in isolation, which will ensure graduates can respond to workforce needs of the future. To date, research on student outcomes has studied learning outcomes independent of one another rather than investigating student learning holistically. The study uses student data from the Prototype to production: Processes and conditions for preparing the Engineer of 2020 study, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF EEC-0550608). Engineering students from a nationally representative sample of engineering programs in the United States answered a survey that collected information on their pre-college academic preparation and sociodemographic characteristics, their curricular and co-curricular experiences in their engineering programs, and their self-ratings of their engineering-related competencies. Only data on engineering students in their senior year (n=2,422) were utilized in analyses. Analyses were conducted in multiple phases for each of five engineering disciplines in the data set (biomedical/bioengineering, chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineering). First, cluster analyses produced typologies (or groupings) of engineering seniors (one for each of five engineering disciplines studied and an "all engineering" analysis) based on nine self-reported learning outcomes, including fundamental skills, design skills, contextual awareness, interdisciplinary competence, and professional skills. Second, profiles of pre-college characteristics as well as student experiences in college were developed for each discipline and the five disciplines combined. Using analyses of variance, Chi-square analyses, and multinomial logistic regression, this phase also identified differences in student characteristics and college experiences between clusters of students reporting high proficiencies on the array of outcomes and students in other clusters. This second phase informed the third phase, which produced parsimonious models that used pre-college characteristics and student experience variables to predict cluster membership. As a whole, the findings demonstrate that analyses that include the full array of E2020 learning outcomes produce meaningful typologies that distinguish between groupings of students in different engineering fields. Findings demonstrate that a subset of students - the engineers of 2020 - report high skills and abilities on the full array of learning outcomes. These are the graduates sought by both the federal government and industry who most closely resemble the engineers of 2020. In addition, distinctive curricular and co-curricular experiences distinguish this E2020 group of students in each engineering discipline from other groupings of students in that same discipline. These findings have valuable implications for practice because they identify an array of discipline-specific, in- and out-of-class learning experiences that appear to promote the development of this multi-dimensional set of outcomes. Overall, however, greater curricular emphases on broad and systems perspectives in the engineering curriculum most consistently set apart the students who report high proficiencies on the E2020 outcomes. The findings also indicate that strategies for improving undergraduate engineering outcomes should be tailored by engineering discipline. The study contributes to both practice and research by developing a technique that can be used to create an outcomes-based typology that can be applied to any set of learning outcomes. Graphical representations of results consolidate large quantities of information into an easily accessible format so that findings can guide both practitioners and policymakers who seek to improve this multi-dimensional set of undergraduate engineering learning outcomes. Future directions for research, including operationalizing organizational contexts influencing E2020 learning outcomes as well as anticipated career trajectories of students across the typology, are also discussed.

A survey of the Australasian clinical medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce.

PubMed

Round, W H

2007-03-01

A survey of the medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce was carried out in 2006. 495 positions (equivalent to 478 equivalent full time (EFT) positions) were captured by the survey. Of these 268 EFT were in radiation oncology physics, 36 EFT were in radiology physics, 44 were in nuclear medicine physics, 101 EFT were in biomedical engineering and 29 EFT were attributed to other activities. The survey reviewed the experience profile, the salary levels and the number of vacant positions in the workforce for the different disciplines in each Australian state and in New Zealand. Analysis of the data identifies staffing shortfalls in the various disciplines and demonstrates the difficulties that will occur in trying to train sufficient physicists to raise staffing to an acceptable level.

Silk Materials Functionalized via Genetic Engineering for Biomedical Applications.

PubMed

Deptuch, Tomasz; Dams-Kozlowska, Hanna

2017-12-12

The great mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradability of silk-based materials make them applicable to the biomedical field. Genetic engineering enables the construction of synthetic equivalents of natural silks. Knowledge about the relationship between the structure and function of silk proteins enables the design of bioengineered silks that can serve as the foundation of new biomaterials. Furthermore, in order to better address the needs of modern biomedicine, genetic engineering can be used to obtain silk-based materials with new functionalities. Sequences encoding new peptides or domains can be added to the sequences encoding the silk proteins. The expression of one cDNA fragment indicates that each silk molecule is related to a functional fragment. This review summarizes the proposed genetic functionalization of silk-based materials that can be potentially useful for biomedical applications.

A 2009 survey of the Australasian clinical medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce.

PubMed

Round, W Howell

2010-06-01

A survey of the Australasian clinical medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce was carried out in 2009 following on from a similar survey in 2006. 621 positions (equivalent to 575 equivalent full time (EFT) positions) were captured by the survey. Of these 330 EFT were in radiation oncology physics, 45 EFT were in radiology physics, 42 EFT were in nuclear medicine physics, 159 EFT were in biomedical engineering and 29 EFT were attributed to other activities. The survey reviewed the experience profile, the salary levels and the number of vacant positions in the workforce for the different disciplines in each Australian state and in New Zealand. Analysis of the data shows the changes to the workforce over the preceding 3 years and identifies shortfalls in the workforce.

The Annals of Biomedical Engineering: inception to signature journal.

PubMed

Fagette, Paul

2012-03-01

The Annals of Biomedical Engineering, the flagship journal of the Biomedical Engineering Society, developed through four distinct stages. Once an editorial infrastructure was in place and a publisher was secured, a long-lived struggle for sufficient manuscripts and financial stability ensued. The journal achieved a degree of stableness by the mid-1980s. Electronic communication and on-line publishing in the 1990s allowed more rapid turn around but the increased acceptance of quality manuscripts created pressures from insufficient available pages. The journal finally turned to self-publication. The Board of Directors and the Publications Board carefully nurtured the journal over the years with financial support and policy. Still, the bulk of the effort was carried by the editors. They dealt with an ever increasing complex publishing process that now supports three Society journals.

DataMed - an open source discovery index for finding biomedical datasets.

PubMed

Chen, Xiaoling; Gururaj, Anupama E; Ozyurt, Burak; Liu, Ruiling; Soysal, Ergin; Cohen, Trevor; Tiryaki, Firat; Li, Yueling; Zong, Nansu; Jiang, Min; Rogith, Deevakar; Salimi, Mandana; Kim, Hyeon-Eui; Rocca-Serra, Philippe; Gonzalez-Beltran, Alejandra; Farcas, Claudiu; Johnson, Todd; Margolis, Ron; Alter, George; Sansone, Susanna-Assunta; Fore, Ian M; Ohno-Machado, Lucila; Grethe, Jeffrey S; Xu, Hua

2018-01-13

Finding relevant datasets is important for promoting data reuse in the biomedical domain, but it is challenging given the volume and complexity of biomedical data. Here we describe the development of an open source biomedical data discovery system called DataMed, with the goal of promoting the building of additional data indexes in the biomedical domain. DataMed, which can efficiently index and search diverse types of biomedical datasets across repositories, is developed through the National Institutes of Health-funded biomedical and healthCAre Data Discovery Index Ecosystem (bioCADDIE) consortium. It consists of 2 main components: (1) a data ingestion pipeline that collects and transforms original metadata information to a unified metadata model, called DatA Tag Suite (DATS), and (2) a search engine that finds relevant datasets based on user-entered queries. In addition to describing its architecture and techniques, we evaluated individual components within DataMed, including the accuracy of the ingestion pipeline, the prevalence of the DATS model across repositories, and the overall performance of the dataset retrieval engine. Our manual review shows that the ingestion pipeline could achieve an accuracy of 90% and core elements of DATS had varied frequency across repositories. On a manually curated benchmark dataset, the DataMed search engine achieved an inferred average precision of 0.2033 and a precision at 10 (P@10, the number of relevant results in the top 10 search results) of 0.6022, by implementing advanced natural language processing and terminology services. Currently, we have made the DataMed system publically available as an open source package for the biomedical community. © The Author 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

A Follow-Up Study of Medical Students' Biomedical Understanding and Clinical Reasoning Concerning the Cardiovascular System

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ahopelto, Ilona; Mikkila-Erdmann, Mirjamaija; Olkinuora, Erkki; Kaapa, Pekka

2011-01-01

Novice medical students usually hold initial conceptions concerning medical domains, such as the cardiovascular system, which may contradict scientific explanations and thus hinder learning. The purpose of this study was to investigate which kinds of biomedical representations medical students constructed of the central cardiovascular system in…

Photoreconfigurable polymers for biomedical applications: chemistry and macromolecular engineering.

PubMed

Zhu, Congcong; Ninh, Chi; Bettinger, Christopher J

2014-10-13

Stimuli-responsive polymers play an important role in many biomedical technologies. Light responsive polymers are particularly desirable because the parameters of irradiated light and diverse photoactive chemistries produce a large number of combinations between functional materials and associated stimuli. This Review summarizes recent advances in utilizing photoactive chemistries in macromolecules for prospective use in biomedical applications. Special focus is granted to selection criterion when choosing photofunctional groups. Synthetic strategies to incorporate these functionalities into polymers and networks with different topologies are also highlighted herein. Prospective applications of these materials are discussed including programmable matrices for controlled release, dynamic scaffolds for tissue engineering, and functional coatings for medical devices. The article concludes by summarizing the state of the art in photoresponsive polymers for biomedical applications including current challenges and future opportunities.

Recommendations to Sustain the Academic Mission Ecosystem at U.S. Medical Schools.

PubMed

Kerschner, Joseph E; Hedges, Jerris R; Antman, Karen; Abraham, Edward; Colón Negrón, Edgar; Jameson, J Larry

2018-07-01

Academic medical center (AMC) faculty, administrators, and leaders have the critical tasks of teaching and training the next generation of health care providers and biomedical researchers, as well as generating new knowledge that improves the health of all. In the United States, medical schools and their affiliated hospitals train remarkably high-quality physicians and scientists, and the research conducted at these institutions results in advances in health. To that end, AMCs have become essential engines for driving better health in the United States and the rest of the world; they also have become essential engines driving the economies of their respective communities and regions. The education and research missions, however, require subsidization because tuition and extramural grant funding do not cover the costs of these endeavors. This subsidization largely has come from revenues generated by AMCs' clinical endeavors. The viability of this cross-subsidization, however, is increasingly threatened in the current clinical environment. The authors of this Perspective discuss these issues in depth and provide some concrete recommendations to address these challenges. They hope to stimulate discussion and, ultimately, ensure the financial viability of U.S. AMCs-a national resource of utmost importance. Recommendations to sustain research include creating strategic biomedical research plans, developing a defined and sustained model to support National Institutes of Health funding that keeps pace with inflation, and evolving funding mechanisms. Recommendations to sustain medical education include limiting student debt, creating more cost-effective curricula, and ensuring that clinical training opportunities that meet national standards are available to students.

A proposal to enhance Engineering education in biology and Medicine by following the legacy of René Favaloro.

PubMed

Armentano, Ricardo L; Cardelino, Juan; Wray, Sandra; Cymberknop, Leandro J; Kun, Luis

2015-01-01

The synergy amongst Engineering, Medicine and Biology evolves as fast as these disciplines. We propose to articulate these specialties based on the premise that new professionals must face different situations or crisis due to the so-called islands of excellence. René Favaloro focused his work and struggles against poverty, since malnutrition and environmental degradation may increase the propensity to cardiovascular diseases. Doctor Favaloro has dedicated, throughout his career, a considerable amount of time to prepare and qualify a research group, aware of the importance that an adequate working environment has over the final results. He created a team of young students, engineers, medical doctors, physicists, mathematicians and other specialists. He centered his attention on human resources, in order to disseminate his latest advances in Biology, Medicine and Engineering. We are revising the programs of biomedical engineering education and the application of new pedagogic paradigms, where critical thinking is the key: a holistic challenge that consists of a new way of learning, innovating, communicating and shearing, with a creative attitude that represents quality of perception.

Biomedical imaging graduate curricula and courses: report from the 2005 Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Educational Summit.

PubMed

Louie, Angelique; Izatt, Joseph; Ferrara, Katherine

2006-02-01

We present an overview of graduate programs in biomedical imaging that are currently available in the US. Special attention is given to the emerging technologies of molecular imaging and biophotonics. Discussions from the workshop on Graduate Imaging at the 2005 Whitaker Educational Summit meeting are summarized.

77 FR 54584 - National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; Notice of Closed Meeting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-09-05

... Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering; Notice of Closed Meeting Pursuant to section 10(d) of the Federal... clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Name of Committee: National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Special Emphasis Panel, ZEB1 OSR-D(J2) P Tissue Engineering Resource Center...

An Ultra-Low Power Turning Angle Based Biomedical Signal Compression Engine with Adaptive Threshold Tuning

PubMed Central

Zhou, Jun; Wang, Chao

2017-01-01

Intelligent sensing is drastically changing our everyday life including healthcare by biomedical signal monitoring, collection, and analytics. However, long-term healthcare monitoring generates tremendous data volume and demands significant wireless transmission power, which imposes a big challenge for wearable healthcare sensors usually powered by batteries. Efficient compression engine design to reduce wireless transmission data rate with ultra-low power consumption is essential for wearable miniaturized healthcare sensor systems. This paper presents an ultra-low power biomedical signal compression engine for healthcare data sensing and analytics in the era of big data and sensor intelligence. It extracts the feature points of the biomedical signal by window-based turning angle detection. The proposed approach has low complexity and thus low power consumption while achieving a large compression ratio (CR) and good quality of reconstructed signal. Near-threshold design technique is adopted to further reduce the power consumption on the circuit level. Besides, the angle threshold for compression can be adaptively tuned according to the error between the original signal and reconstructed signal to address the variation of signal characteristics from person to person or from channel to channel to meet the required signal quality with optimal CR. For demonstration, the proposed biomedical compression engine has been used and evaluated for ECG compression. It achieves an average (CR) of 71.08% and percentage root-mean-square difference (PRD) of 5.87% while consuming only 39 nW. Compared to several state-of-the-art ECG compression engines, the proposed design has significantly lower power consumption while achieving similar CRD and PRD, making it suitable for long-term wearable miniaturized sensor systems to sense and collect healthcare data for remote data analytics. PMID:28783079

An Ultra-Low Power Turning Angle Based Biomedical Signal Compression Engine with Adaptive Threshold Tuning.

PubMed

Zhou, Jun; Wang, Chao

2017-08-06

Intelligent sensing is drastically changing our everyday life including healthcare by biomedical signal monitoring, collection, and analytics. However, long-term healthcare monitoring generates tremendous data volume and demands significant wireless transmission power, which imposes a big challenge for wearable healthcare sensors usually powered by batteries. Efficient compression engine design to reduce wireless transmission data rate with ultra-low power consumption is essential for wearable miniaturized healthcare sensor systems. This paper presents an ultra-low power biomedical signal compression engine for healthcare data sensing and analytics in the era of big data and sensor intelligence. It extracts the feature points of the biomedical signal by window-based turning angle detection. The proposed approach has low complexity and thus low power consumption while achieving a large compression ratio (CR) and good quality of reconstructed signal. Near-threshold design technique is adopted to further reduce the power consumption on the circuit level. Besides, the angle threshold for compression can be adaptively tuned according to the error between the original signal and reconstructed signal to address the variation of signal characteristics from person to person or from channel to channel to meet the required signal quality with optimal CR. For demonstration, the proposed biomedical compression engine has been used and evaluated for ECG compression. It achieves an average (CR) of 71.08% and percentage root-mean-square difference (PRD) of 5.87% while consuming only 39 nW. Compared to several state-of-the-art ECG compression engines, the proposed design has significantly lower power consumption while achieving similar CRD and PRD, making it suitable for long-term wearable miniaturized sensor systems to sense and collect healthcare data for remote data analytics.

Otto Schmitt's contributions to basic and applied biomedical engineering and to the profession.

PubMed

Patterson, Robert

2009-01-01

Otto Schmitt was one of the early giants in biomedical engineering. Best known in engineering circles for the Schmitt Trigger, he also made many other significant scientific contributions. Besides his scientific work Otto was involved in early organizational activities, which included the first large professional BME meeting in Minneapolis in 1958. A description of his many contributions will be presented along with a short video of Schmitt giving a tour of his laboratory, including the original Schmitt Trigger and the model he used to develop his vector ECG system.

Writing intelligible English prose for biomedical journals.

PubMed

Ludbrook, John

2007-01-01

1. I present a combination of semi-objective and subjective evidence that the quality of English prose in biomedical scientific writing is deteriorating. 2. I consider seven possible strategies for reversing this apparent trend. These refer to a greater emphasis on good writing by students in schools and by university students, consulting books on science writing, one-on-one mentoring, using 'scientific' measures to reveal lexical poverty, making use of freelance science editors and encouraging the editors of biomedical journals to pay more attention to the problem. 3. I conclude that a fruitful, long-term, strategy would be to encourage more biomedical scientists to embark on a career in science editing. This strategy requires a complementary initiative on the part of biomedical research institutions and universities to employ qualified science editors. 4. An immediately realisable strategy is to encourage postgraduate students in the biomedical sciences to undertake the service courses provided by many universities on writing English prose in general and scientific prose in particular. This strategy would require that heads of departments and supervisors urge their postgraduate students to attend such courses. 5. Two major publishers of biomedical journals, Blackwell Publications and Elsevier Science, now provide lists of commercial editing services on their web sites. I strongly recommend that authors intending to submit manuscripts to their journals (including Blackwell's Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology) make use of these services. This recommendation applies especially to those for whom English is a second language.

A research education program model to prepare a highly qualified workforce in biomedical and health-related research and increase diversity.

PubMed

Crockett, Elahé T

2014-09-24

The National Institutes of Health has recognized a compelling need to train highly qualified individuals and promote diversity in the biomedical/clinical sciences research workforce. In response, we have developed a research-training program known as REPID (Research Education Program to Increase Diversity among Health Researchers) to prepare students/learners to pursue research careers in these fields and address the lack of diversity and health disparities. By inclusion of students/learners from minority and diverse backgrounds, the REPID program aims to provide a research training and enrichment experience through team mentoring to inspire students/learners to pursue research careers in biomedical and health-related fields. Students/learners are recruited from the University campus from a diverse population of undergraduates, graduates, health professionals, and lifelong learners. Our recruits first enroll into an innovative on-line introductory course in Basics and Methods in Biomedical Research that uses a laboratory Tool-Kit (a lab in a box called the My Dr. ET Lab Tool-Kit) to receive the standard basics of research education, e.g., research skills, and lab techniques. The students/learners will also learn about the responsible conduct of research, research concept/design, data recording/analysis, and scientific writing/presentation. The course is followed by a 12-week hands-on research experience during the summer. The students/learners also attend workshops and seminars/conferences. The students/learners receive scholarship to cover stipends, research related expenses, and to attend a scientific conference. The scholarship allows the students/learners to gain knowledge and seize opportunities in biomedical and health-related careers. This is an ongoing program, and during the first three years of the program, fifty-one (51) students/learners have been recruited. Thirty-six (36) have completed their research training, and eighty percent (80%) of them have continued their research experiences beyond the program. The combination of carefully providing standard basics of research education and mentorship has been successful and instrumental for training these students/learners and their success in finding biomedical/health-related jobs and/or pursuing graduate/medical studies. All experiences have been positive and highly promoted. This approach has the potential to train a highly qualified workforce, change lives, enhance biomedical research, and by extension, improve national health-care.

How Do Interaction Experiences Influence Doctoral Students’ Academic Pursuits in Biomedical Research?

PubMed Central

Kong, Xiaoqing; Chakraverty, Devasmita; Jeffe, Donna B.; Andriole, Dorothy A.; Wathington, Heather D.; Tai, Robert H.

2014-01-01

This exploratory qualitative study investigated how doctoral students reported their personal and professional interaction experiences that they believed might facilitate or impede their academic pursuits in biomedical research. We collected 19 in-depth interviews with doctoral students in biomedical research from eight universities, and we based our qualitative analytic approach on the work of Miles and Huberman. The results indicated that among different sources and types of interaction, academic and emotional interactions from family and teachers in various stages essentially affected students’ persistence in the biomedical science field. In addition, co-mentorship among peers, departmental environment, and volunteer experiences were other essential factors. This study also found related experiences among women and underrepresented minority students that were important to their academic pursuit. PMID:26166928

The Benefits of Attending the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS): The Role of Research Confidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Casad, Bettina J.; Chang, Amy L.; Pribbenow, Christine M.

2016-01-01

The Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) is designed to support undergraduate students' professional development as future scientists. Juniors, seniors, and postbaccalaureates who attended ABRCMS during 2008-2011 were emailed a link to an online questionnaire in which they reported their experiences at the…

Biomedical Mathematics, Unit II: Propagation of Error, Vectors and Linear Programming. Student Text. Revised Version, 1975.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project, Berkeley, CA.

This student text presents instructional materials for a unit of mathematics within the Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project (BICP), a two-year interdisciplinary precollege curriculum aimed at preparing high school students for entry into college and vocational programs leading to a career in the health field. Lessons concentrate on…

From Bench to Bedside: A Communal Utility Value Intervention to Enhance Students' Biomedical Science Motivation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Elizabeth R.; Smith, Jessi L.; Thoman, Dustin B.; Allen, Jill M.; Muragishi, Gregg

2015-01-01

Motivating students to pursue science careers is a top priority among many science educators. We add to the growing literature by examining the impact of a utility value intervention to enhance student's perceptions that biomedical science affords important utility work values. Using an expectancy-value perspective, we identified and tested 2…

Engineering Technology Education: Bibliography 1989.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dyrud, Marilyn A., Comp.

1990-01-01

Over 200 references divided into 24 different areas are presented. Topics include administration, aeronautics, architecture, biomedical technology, CAD/CAM, civil engineering, computers, curriculum, electrical/electronics engineering, industrial engineering, industry and employment, instructional technology, laboratories, lasers, liberal studies,…

Silk Materials Functionalized via Genetic Engineering for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Deptuch, Tomasz

2017-01-01

The great mechanical properties, biocompatibility and biodegradability of silk-based materials make them applicable to the biomedical field. Genetic engineering enables the construction of synthetic equivalents of natural silks. Knowledge about the relationship between the structure and function of silk proteins enables the design of bioengineered silks that can serve as the foundation of new biomaterials. Furthermore, in order to better address the needs of modern biomedicine, genetic engineering can be used to obtain silk-based materials with new functionalities. Sequences encoding new peptides or domains can be added to the sequences encoding the silk proteins. The expression of one cDNA fragment indicates that each silk molecule is related to a functional fragment. This review summarizes the proposed genetic functionalization of silk-based materials that can be potentially useful for biomedical applications. PMID:29231863

Group of R&D on biomedical engineering: Its development and results.

PubMed

Yabar, Leopoldo F; Torres, Miguel A; Garcia, Daniel O; Villavicencio, Emilio A; Navarro, Luis A; Nakamura, Orlando K; Huamani, Robinson

2010-01-01

Conducting research and development activities generates new knowledge that can then be applied properly. In this sense, the groups of research and development on biomedical engineering (GRDBE) can contribute a lot in various areas such as teaching (theory and laboratory), as well as the development of prototypes, but mainly with the results they can provide. These contributions should response to specific needs of some sector, for example: health, environment, biology, and others. The present paper provides a description of the development of a GRDBE into a private university. Also, it's presented the amount of papers developed by this group and accepted by international congress on biomedical engineering (BE) on the 2007-2009 period. This paper also shows comparative charts with papers produced by other GRDBE that exist in our country, which are matter of analysis and conclusions.

A 2012 survey of the Australasian clinical medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce.

PubMed

Round, W H

2013-06-01

A survey of the medical physics and biomedical engineering workforce in Australia and New Zealand was carried out in 2012 following on from similar surveys in 2009 and 2006. 761 positions (equivalent to 736 equivalent full time (EFT) positions) were captured by the survey. Of these, 428 EFT were in radiation oncology physics, 63 EFT were in radiology physics, 49 EFT were in nuclear medicine physics, 150 EFT were in biomedical engineering and 46 EFT were attributed to other activities. The survey reviewed the experience profile, the salary levels and the number of vacant positions in the workforce for the different disciplines in each Australian state and in New Zealand. Analysis of the data shows the changes to the workforce over the preceding 6 years and identifies shortfalls in the workforce.

Supporting undergraduate biomedical entrepreneurship.

PubMed

Patterson, P E

2004-01-01

As biomedical innovations become more sophisticated and expensive to bring to market, an approach is needed to ensure the survival of the best ideas. The tactic used by Iowa State University to provide entrepreneurship opportunities for undergraduate students in biomedical areas is a model that has proven to be both distinctive and effective. Iowa State supports and fosters undergraduate student entrepreneurship efforts through the Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship. This unique partnership encourages ISU faculty, researchers, and students to become involved in the world of entrepreneurship, while allowing Iowa's business communities to gain access to a wide array of available resources, skills, and information from Iowa State University.

Teaching biomedical design through a university-industry partnership.

PubMed

Khuon, Lunal; Zum, Karl R; Zurn, Jane B; Herrera, Gerald M

2016-08-01

This paper describes a course that, as a result of a university-industry partnership, emphasizes bringing industry experts into the classroom to teach biomedical design. Full-time faculty and industry engineers and entrepreneurs teach the senior technical elective course, Biomedical System Design. This hands-on senior course in biomedical system design places varied but connected emphasis on understanding the biological signal source, electronics design, safety, patient use, medical device qualifications, and good manufacturing practices.

Design of e-Science platform for biomedical imaging research cross multiple academic institutions and hospitals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jianguo; Zhang, Kai; Yang, Yuanyuan; Ling, Tonghui; Wang, Tusheng; Wang, Mingqing; Hu, Haibo; Xu, Xuemin

2012-02-01

More and more image informatics researchers and engineers are considering to re-construct imaging and informatics infrastructure or to build new framework to enable multiple disciplines of medical researchers, clinical physicians and biomedical engineers working together in a secured, efficient, and transparent cooperative environment. In this presentation, we show an outline and our preliminary design work of building an e-Science platform for biomedical imaging and informatics research and application in Shanghai. We will present our consideration and strategy on designing this platform, and preliminary results. We also will discuss some challenges and solutions in building this platform.

Challenges of the biomedical engineering education in Europe.

PubMed

Magjarevic, Ratko; Lackovic, Igor; Bliznakov, Zhivko; Pallikarakis, Nicolas

2010-01-01

Higher education in Europe has passed through a very dynamic period of changes during the last ten years. Since the signing of the Bologna Declaration in 1999 by the Ministers of Education from the EU states, European higher education system has aimed toward establishing harmonized programs enabling students and teachers to extensively exchange knowledge, ideas and skills. Education in the field of Biomedical Engineering has experienced changes also because of the research and development in the field which was more intensive than in other fields. Besides research in new power sources, it is the most intensive and productive research field. Much of the development in BME education in Europe is influenced by the European research policy expressed through the 7th Framework Programme where health is the major theme. In order to foster and support the changes in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) according to the needs of research sector and the labor market, the Tempus scheme of projects was established. Tempus scheme aims to support the modernization of higher education and create an area of co-operation in the countries surrounding the EU. Our Tempus project, CRH-BME "Curricula Reformation and Harmonization in the field of Biomedical Engineering" aims to create guidelines for updating existing curricula in the field of BME in Europe in order to meet recent and future developments in the area, address new emerging interdisciplinary domains that appear as the result of the R&D progress and respond to the BME job market demands. In this paper, some policy and economic factors affecting BME education in Europe are discussed and the results of a BME education survey we prepared within the Tempus CHR-BME project are presented. The number of BME programmes in Europe has in the last decade significantly increased and there are more BME specializations as the result of growing complexity of the research and production in the field.

Experiences Gained Creating a Biophysics Major at a Predominately Undergraduate Institution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Link, Justin; Herbert, Steven

2014-03-01

Xavier University, a liberal arts predominately undergraduate institution (PUI) located in Cincinnati, OH, implemented a Biophysics major in the Department of Physics in spring 2012. The program is built upon foundational physics courses and is unique due to the possible selection of upper-division courses that students elect to take towards their undergraduate degree. A capstone course is offered to bring all prior knowledge in the fundamental sciences together to approach complex problems in biology. Due to the flexibility of the program, it serves students well who are interested in pursuing advanced degrees in Biophysics or Biomedical Engineering. It also offers students interested in the health professions an alternate path towards medical school which can be advantageous in the application process. This session will express some of the advantages and challenges to creating such a program at a liberal arts PUI and discuss the capstone course within the major.

How to locate & hire clinical/biomedical engineers, supervisors, managers & biomedical equipment technicians.

PubMed

Pacela, A F; Brush, L C

1993-01-01

This article has described the process and the resources available for locating and hiring clinical/biomedical engineers, supervisors, managers, and biomedical equipment technicians. First, the employer must determine the qualifications for the position, including job titles, descriptions, pay scales, and certification requirements. Next, the employer must find qualified applicants. The most common way to do this is to use "outside" contacts, such as help-wanted advertising, specialized job placement agencies, schools and colleges, military resources, regional biomedical societies, and nationwide societies. An "inside" search involves limited internal advertising of the position and using personal referrals for candidates. Finally, the employer must screen the applicants. The position description is the obvious first step in this process, but there are other pre-screening techniques, such as employment testing. Interviewing is the most common way to hire for job positions, but the interviewer needs to know about the position and ask the right questions. Post-interview screening is a final step to help determine the best job-person match.

Figure mining for biomedical research.

PubMed

Rodriguez-Esteban, Raul; Iossifov, Ivan

2009-08-15

Figures from biomedical articles contain valuable information difficult to reach without specialized tools. Currently, there is no search engine that can retrieve specific figure types. This study describes a retrieval method that takes advantage of principles in image understanding, text mining and optical character recognition (OCR) to retrieve figure types defined conceptually. A search engine was developed to retrieve tables and figure types to aid computational and experimental research. http://iossifovlab.cshl.edu/figurome/.

Structural Design and Physicochemical Foundations of Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications.

PubMed

Li, Qingyong; Ning, Zhengxiang; Ren, Jiaoyan; Liao, Wenzhen

2018-01-01

Biomedical research, known as medical research, is conducive to support and promote the development of knowledge in the field of medicine. Hydrogels have been extensively used in many biomedical fields due to their highly absorbent and flexible properties. The smart hydrogels, especially, can respond to a broad range of external stimuli such as temperature, pH value, light, electric and magnetic fields. With excellent biocompatibility, tunable rheology, mechanical properties, porosity, and hydrated molecular structure, hydrogels are considered as promising candidate for simulating local tissue microenvironment. In this review article, we mainly focused on the most recent development of engineering synthetic hydrogels; moreover, the classification, properties, especially the biomedical applications including tissue engineering and cell scaffolding, drug and gene delivery, immunotherapies and vaccines, are summarized and discussed. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Students' self-explanations while solving unfamiliar cases: the role of biomedical knowledge.

PubMed

Chamberland, Martine; Mamede, Sílvia; St-Onge, Christina; Rivard, Marc-Antoine; Setrakian, Jean; Lévesque, Annie; Lanthier, Luc; Schmidt, Henk G; Rikers, Remy M J P

2013-11-01

General guidelines for teaching clinical reasoning have received much attention, despite a paucity of instructional approaches with demonstrated effectiveness. As suggested in a recent experimental study, self-explanation while solving clinical cases may be an effective strategy to foster reasoning in clinical clerks dealing with less familiar cases. However, the mechanisms that mediate this benefit have not been specifically investigated. The aim of this study was to explore the types of knowledge used by students when solving familiar and less familiar clinical cases with self-explanation. In a previous study, 36 third-year medical students diagnosed familiar and less familiar clinical cases either by engaging in self-explanation or not. Based on an analysis of previously collected data, the present study compared the content of self-explanation protocols generated by seven randomly selected students while solving four familiar and four less familiar cases. In total, 56 verbal protocols (28 familiar and 28 less familiar) were segmented and coded using the following categories: paraphrases, biomedical inferences, clinical inferences, monitoring statements and errors. Students provided more self-explanation segments from less familiar cases (M = 275.29) than from familiar cases (M = 248.71, p = 0.046). They provided significantly more paraphrases (p = 0.001) and made more errors (p = 0.008). A significant interaction was found between familiarity and the type of inferences (biomedical versus clinical, p = 0.016). When self-explaining less familiar cases, students provided significantly more biomedical inferences than familiar cases. Lack of familiarity with a case seems to stimulate medical students to engage in more extensive thinking during self-explanation. Less familiar cases seem to activate students' biomedical knowledge, which in turn helps them to create new links between biomedical and clinical knowledge, and eventually construct a more coherent mental representation of diseases. This may clarify the previously found positive effect that self-explanation has on the diagnosis of unfamiliar cases. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Discovering Beaten Paths in Collaborative Ontology-Engineering Projects using Markov Chains

PubMed Central

Walk, Simon; Singer, Philipp; Strohmaier, Markus; Tudorache, Tania; Musen, Mark A.; Noy, Natalya F.

2014-01-01

Biomedical taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies in the form of the International Classification of Diseases as a taxonomy or the National Cancer Institute Thesaurus as an OWL-based ontology, play a critical role in acquiring, representing and processing information about human health. With increasing adoption and relevance, biomedical ontologies have also significantly increased in size. For example, the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, which is currently under active development by the World Health Organization contains nearly 50, 000 classes representing a vast variety of different diseases and causes of death. This evolution in terms of size was accompanied by an evolution in the way ontologies are engineered. Because no single individual has the expertise to develop such large-scale ontologies, ontology-engineering projects have evolved from small-scale efforts involving just a few domain experts to large-scale projects that require effective collaboration between dozens or even hundreds of experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. Understanding the way these different stakeholders collaborate will enable us to improve editing environments that support such collaborations. In this paper, we uncover how large ontology-engineering projects, such as the International Classification of Diseases in its 11th revision, unfold by analyzing usage logs of five different biomedical ontology-engineering projects of varying sizes and scopes using Markov chains. We discover intriguing interaction patterns (e.g., which properties users frequently change after specific given ones) that suggest that large collaborative ontology-engineering projects are governed by a few general principles that determine and drive development. From our analysis, we identify commonalities and differences between different projects that have implications for project managers, ontology editors, developers and contributors working on collaborative ontology-engineering projects and tools in the biomedical domain. PMID:24953242

Discovering beaten paths in collaborative ontology-engineering projects using Markov chains.

PubMed

Walk, Simon; Singer, Philipp; Strohmaier, Markus; Tudorache, Tania; Musen, Mark A; Noy, Natalya F

2014-10-01

Biomedical taxonomies, thesauri and ontologies in the form of the International Classification of Diseases as a taxonomy or the National Cancer Institute Thesaurus as an OWL-based ontology, play a critical role in acquiring, representing and processing information about human health. With increasing adoption and relevance, biomedical ontologies have also significantly increased in size. For example, the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases, which is currently under active development by the World Health Organization contains nearly 50,000 classes representing a vast variety of different diseases and causes of death. This evolution in terms of size was accompanied by an evolution in the way ontologies are engineered. Because no single individual has the expertise to develop such large-scale ontologies, ontology-engineering projects have evolved from small-scale efforts involving just a few domain experts to large-scale projects that require effective collaboration between dozens or even hundreds of experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. Understanding the way these different stakeholders collaborate will enable us to improve editing environments that support such collaborations. In this paper, we uncover how large ontology-engineering projects, such as the International Classification of Diseases in its 11th revision, unfold by analyzing usage logs of five different biomedical ontology-engineering projects of varying sizes and scopes using Markov chains. We discover intriguing interaction patterns (e.g., which properties users frequently change after specific given ones) that suggest that large collaborative ontology-engineering projects are governed by a few general principles that determine and drive development. From our analysis, we identify commonalities and differences between different projects that have implications for project managers, ontology editors, developers and contributors working on collaborative ontology-engineering projects and tools in the biomedical domain. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Using an Untapped Resource: Expanding the Role of the Student Worker at the Bio-Medical Library

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aho, Melissa K.; Beschnett, Anne M.; Reimer, Emily Y.

2010-01-01

Student workers have always been a traditional and valuable component to the smooth running of many academic health sciences libraries. However, in recent years many libraries have redefined student workers' roles to extend beyond their traditional scope due to a range of factors, such as loss of staff and budget cutbacks. The Bio-Medical Library…

An information technology emphasis in biomedical informatics education.

PubMed

Kane, Michael D; Brewer, Jeffrey L

2007-02-01

Unprecedented growth in the interdisciplinary domain of biomedical informatics reflects the recent advancements in genomic sequence availability, high-content biotechnology screening systems, as well as the expectations of computational biology to command a leading role in drug discovery and disease characterization. These forces have moved much of life sciences research almost completely into the computational domain. Importantly, educational training in biomedical informatics has been limited to students enrolled in the life sciences curricula, yet much of the skills needed to succeed in biomedical informatics involve or augment training in information technology curricula. This manuscript describes the methods and rationale for training students enrolled in information technology curricula in the field of biomedical informatics, which augments the existing information technology curriculum and provides training on specific subjects in Biomedical Informatics not emphasized in bioinformatics courses offered in life science programs, and does not require prerequisite courses in the life sciences.

Summer Biomedical Engineering Institute 1972

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Deloatch, E. M.

1973-01-01

The five problems studied for biomedical applications of NASA technology are reported. The studies reported are: design modification of electrophoretic equipment, operating room environment control, hematological viscometry, handling system for iridium, and indirect blood pressure measuring device.

Immediate detailed feedback to test-enhanced learning: an effective online educational tool.

PubMed

Wojcikowski, Ken; Kirk, Leslie

2013-11-01

Test-enhanced learning has gained popularity because it is an effective way to increase retention of knowledge; provided the student receives the correct answer soon after the test is taken. To determine whether detailed feedback provided to test-enhanced learning questions is an effective online educational tool for improving performance on complex biomedical information exams. A series of online multiple choice tests were developed to test knowledge of biomedical information that students were expected to know after each patient-case. Following submission of the student answers, one cohort (n = 52) received answers only while the following year, a second cohort (n = 51) received the answers with detailed feedback explaining why each answer was correct or incorrect. Students in both groups progressed through the series of online tests with little assessor intervention. Students receiving the answers along with the explanations within their feedback performed significantly better in the final biomedical information exam than those students receiving correct answers only. This pilot study found that the detailed feedback to test-enhanced learning questions is an important online learning tool. The increase in student performance in the complex biomedical information exam in this study suggests that detailed feedback should be investigated not only for increasing knowledge, but also be investigated for its effect on retention and application of knowledge.

Preliminary comparison of the Essie and PubMed search engines for answering clinical questions using MD on Tap, a PDA-based program for accessing biomedical literature.

PubMed

Sutton, Victoria R; Hauser, Susan E

2005-01-01

MD on Tap, a PDA application that searches and retrieves biomedical literature, is specifically designed for use by mobile healthcare professionals. With the goal of improving the usability of the application, a preliminary comparison was made of two search engines (PubMed and Essie) to determine which provided most efficient path to the desired clinically-relevant information.

Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates' Biomedical Experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

Experiments to seek solutions for a range of biomedical issues are at the heart of several investigations that will be hosted by the Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates (ITA), Inc. Biomedical Experiments (CIBX-2) payload. CIBX-2 is unique, encompassing more than 20 separate experiments including cancer research, commercial experiments, and student hands-on experiments from 10 schools as part of ITA's ongoing University Among the Stars program. Student Marnix Aklian and ITA's Mark Bem prepare biological samples for flight as part of ITA's hands-on student outreach program on STS-95. Similar activities are a part of the CIBX-2 payload. The experiments are sponsored by NASA's Space Product Development Program (SPD).

A Bioinformatics Module for Use in an Introductory Biology Laboratory

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alaie, Adrienne; Teller, Virginia; Qiu, Wei-gang

2012-01-01

Since biomedical science has become increasingly data-intensive, acquisition of computational and quantitative skills by science students has become more important. For non-science students, an introduction to biomedical databases and their applications promotes the development of a scientifically literate population. Because typical college…

Teaching Research Integrity and Bioethics to Science Undergraduates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turrens, Julio F.

2005-01-01

Undergraduate students in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, are required to take a course entitled "Issues in Biomedical Sciences," designed to increase students' awareness about bioethical questions and issues concerning research integrity. This paper describes the main features of this…

Carbon dots: emerging theranostic nanoarchitectures.

PubMed

Mishra, Vijay; Patil, Akshay; Thakur, Sourav; Kesharwani, Prashant

2018-06-01

Nanotechnology has gained significant interest from biomedical and analytical researchers in recent years. Carbon dots (C-dots), a new member of the carbon nanomaterial family, are spherical, nontoxic, biocompatible, and discrete particles less than 10nm in diameter. Research interest has focused on C-dots because of their ultra-compact nanosize, favorable biocompatibility, outstanding photoluminescence, superior electron transfer ability, and versatile surface engineering properties. C-dots show significant potential for use in cellular imaging, biosensing, targeted drug delivery, and other biomedical applications. Here we discuss C-dots, in terms of their physicochemical properties, fabrication techniques, toxicity issues, surface engineering and biomedical potential in drug delivery, targeting as well as bioimaging. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Engineered, thermoresponsive, magnetic nanocarriers of oligo(ethylene glycol)-methacrylate-based biopolymers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCallister, Thomas; Gidney, Elwood; Adams, Devin; Diercks, David R.; Ghosh, Santaneel

2014-11-01

Engineered magnetic nanocarriers offer attractive options for implementing novel therapeutic solutions in biomedical research; however lack of biocompatibility and external tunability have prevented a biomedical breakthrough. Here we report multifunctional, magnetic nanospheres with tailored size, volumetric transition range, and magnetic properties based on biocompatible, thermo-responsive oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate biopolymers. Precise control of the nanosphere size in the range 100-300 nm, coupled with a higher and broader volumetric transition range (32-42 °C), is ideal for various biomedical applications. More importantly, super-paramagnetic behavior of the nanocarriers, even after polymer shell shrinkage, indicates stable and easily controllable loss mechanisms under exposure to an ac magnetic field.

Examining the need & potential for biomedical engineering to strengthen health care delivery for displaced populations & victims of conflict.

PubMed

Nadkarni, Devika; Elhajj, Imad; Dawy, Zaher; Ghattas, Hala; Zaman, Muhammad H

2017-01-01

Conflict and the subsequent displacement of populations creates unique challenges in the delivery of quality health care to the affected population. Equitable access to quality care demands a multi-pronged strategy with a growing need, and role, for technological innovation to address these challenges. While there have been significant contributions towards alleviating the burden of conflict via data informatics and analytics, communication technology, and geographic information systems, little has been done within biomedical engineering. This article elaborates on the causes for gaps in biomedical innovation for refugee populations affected by conflict, tackles preconceived notions, takes stock of recent developments in promising technologies to address these challenges, and identifies tangible action items to create a stronger and sustainable pipeline for biomedical technological innovation to improve the health and well-being of an increasing group of vulnerable people around the world.

Implantable Biomedical Microsystems: A New Graduate Course in Biomedical Circuits and Systems

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sodagar, Amir M.

2014-01-01

After more than two decades of research on the design and development of implantable biomedical microsystems, it is time now to organize research achievements in this area in a consolidated and pedagogical form. This paper introduces a new graduate course in advanced biomedical circuits and systems. Designed for graduate students with electrical…

Gifted Minority High School Students Study Biomedical Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bitter, John

1988-01-01

A program at Alabama State University seeks to stimulate the interest of academically gifted minority juniors and seniors in biomedical sciences and health professions. Selected students carry out research under the direction of university faculty members, in such areas as salmonella contamination in chicken and acid content in rainwater. (JDD)

Nursing students' attitudes to biomedical science lectures.

PubMed

Al-Modhefer, A K; Roe, S

To explore what first-year nursing students believe to be the preferred characteristics of common foundation programme biomedical science lecturers, and to investigate whether students prefer active or passive learning. Survey and interview methodologies were used to explore the attitudes of a cohort of first-year nursing students at Queen's University Belfast. Questionnaires were distributed among 300 students. Individuals were asked to select five of a list of 14 criteria that they believed characterised the qualities of an effective lecturer. Informal interviews were carried out with five participants who were randomly selected from the sample to investigate which teaching methods were most beneficial in assisting their learning. Nursing students favoured didactic teaching and found interactivity in lectures intimidating. Students preferred to learn biomedical science passively and depended heavily on their instructors. In response to the survey, the authors propose a set of recommendations to enhance the learning process in large classes. This guidance includes giving clear objectives and requirements to students, encouraging active participation, and sustaining student interest through the use of improved teaching aids and innovative techniques.

A natural fit: home healthcare and biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Damasco, Nestor; Abe, Chris

2010-01-01

The involvement of Biomed in management of home care equipment has become a natural fit for Rady Children's Hospital. Managing all aspects of home care equipment through an in-house biomedical engineering department is cost-effective, efficient, provides excellent customer service, and enhances the relationship with the clinical staff and patients. It develops a sense of security for patients and staff that home care equipment is tested and maintained in a stringent manner that promotes safety.

Preliminary comparison of the Essie and PubMed search engines for answering clinical questions using MD on Tap, a PDA-based program for accessing biomedical literature

PubMed Central

Sutton, Victoria R.; Hauser, Susan E.

2005-01-01

MD on Tap, a PDA application that searches and retrieves biomedical literature, is specifically designed for use by mobile healthcare professionals. With the goal of improving the usability of the application, a preliminary comparison was made of two search engines (PubMed and Essie) to determine which provided most efficient path to the desired clinically-relevant information. PMID:16779415

Career Coaches as a Source of Vicarious Learning for Racial and Ethnic Minority PhD Students in the Biomedical Sciences: A Qualitative Study.

PubMed

Williams, Simon N; Thakore, Bhoomi K; McGee, Richard

2016-01-01

Many recent mentoring initiatives have sought to help improve the proportion of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities (URMs) in academic positions across the biomedical sciences. However, the intractable nature of the problem of underrepresentation suggests that many young scientists may require supplemental career development beyond what many mentors are able to offer. As an adjunct to traditional scientific mentoring, we created a novel academic career "coaching" intervention for PhD students in the biomedical sciences. To determine whether and how academic career coaches can provide effective career-development-related learning experiences for URM PhD students in the biomedical sciences. We focus specifically on vicarious learning experiences, where individuals learn indirectly through the experiences of others. The intervention is being tested as part of a longitudinal randomized control trial (RCT). Here, we describe a nested qualitative study, using a framework approach to analyze data from a total of 48 semi-structured interviews from 24 URM PhD students (2 interviews per participant, 1 at baseline, 1 at 12-month follow-up) (16 female, 8 male; 11 Black, 12 Hispanic, 1 Native-American). We explored the role of the coach as a source of vicarious learning, in relation to the students' goal of being future biomedical science faculty. Coaches were resources through which most students in the study were able to learn vicariously about how to pursue, and succeed within, an academic career. Coaches were particularly useful in instances where students' research mentors are unable to provide such vicarious learning opportunities, for example because the mentor is too busy to have career-related discussions with a student, or because they have, or value, a different type of academic career to the type the student hopes to achieve. Coaching can be an important way to address the lack of structured career development that students receive in their home training environment.

Where to search top-K biomedical ontologies?

PubMed

Oliveira, Daniela; Butt, Anila Sahar; Haller, Armin; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich; Sahay, Ratnesh

2018-03-20

Searching for precise terms and terminological definitions in the biomedical data space is problematic, as researchers find overlapping, closely related and even equivalent concepts in a single or multiple ontologies. Search engines that retrieve ontological resources often suggest an extensive list of search results for a given input term, which leads to the tedious task of selecting the best-fit ontological resource (class or property) for the input term and reduces user confidence in the retrieval engines. A systematic evaluation of these search engines is necessary to understand their strengths and weaknesses in different search requirements. We have implemented seven comparable Information Retrieval ranking algorithms to search through ontologies and compared them against four search engines for ontologies. Free-text queries have been performed, the outcomes have been judged by experts and the ranking algorithms and search engines have been evaluated against the expert-based ground truth (GT). In addition, we propose a probabilistic GT that is developed automatically to provide deeper insights and confidence to the expert-based GT as well as evaluating a broader range of search queries. The main outcome of this work is the identification of key search factors for biomedical ontologies together with search requirements and a set of recommendations that will help biomedical experts and ontology engineers to select the best-suited retrieval mechanism in their search scenarios. We expect that this evaluation will allow researchers and practitioners to apply the current search techniques more reliably and that it will help them to select the right solution for their daily work. The source code (of seven ranking algorithms), ground truths and experimental results are available at https://github.com/danielapoliveira/bioont-search-benchmark.

The Limitations of the GRE in Predicting Success in Biomedical Graduate School

PubMed Central

Moneta-Koehler, Liane; Brown, Abigail M.; Petrie, Kimberly A.; Evans, Brent J.; Chalkley, Roger

2017-01-01

Historically, admissions committees for biomedical Ph.D. programs have heavily weighed GRE scores when considering applications for admission. The predictive validity of GRE scores on graduate student success is unclear, and there have been no recent investigations specifically on the relationship between general GRE scores and graduate student success in biomedical research. Data from Vanderbilt University Medical School’s biomedical umbrella program were used to test to what extent GRE scores can predict outcomes in graduate school training when controlling for other admissions information. Overall, the GRE did not prove useful in predicating who will graduate with a Ph.D., pass the qualifying exam, have a shorter time to defense, deliver more conference presentations, publish more first author papers, or obtain an individual grant or fellowship. GRE scores were found to be moderate predictors of first semester grades, and weak to moderate predictors of graduate GPA and some elements of a faculty evaluation. These findings suggest admissions committees of biomedical doctoral programs should consider minimizing their reliance on GRE scores to predict the important measures of progress in the program and student productivity. PMID:28076356

Adolf Friedrich Fercher: a pioneer of biomedical optics.

PubMed

Hitzenberger, Christoph K

2017-11-01

Adolf Friedrich Fercher, an outstanding pioneer of biomedical optics, passed away earlier this year. He was a brilliant and visionary researcher who pioneered various fields of biomedical optics, such as laser speckle flowgraphy, tissue interferometry, and optical coherence tomography (OCT). On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of OCT, this paper reviews and commemorates Fercher's pioneering work. (2017) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

[327] Biomedical Research Deferred in the Aftermath of the Apollo Fire: Impact to Progress in Human Spaceflight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Charles, John B.

2017-01-01

Before Apollo fire, early Apollo missions were expected to continue pattern established in Gemini program of accommodating significant scientific and biological experimentation, including human biomedical studies, during flights. Apollo1 and Apollo2, both 2-week engineering test flights, were to carry almost as many biomedical studies as Gemini 7, a 2-week medical test mission.

Biomedical Science, Unit III: The Circulatory System in Health and Science. The Heart and Blood Vessels; Blood and Its Properties; The Urinary Tract. Student Text. Revised Version, 1976.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project, Berkeley, CA.

This student text presents instructional materials for a unit of science within the Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project (BICP), a two-year interdisciplinary precollege curriculum aimed at preparing high school students for entry into college and vocational programs leading to a career in the health field. Lessons concentrate on the…

High school science fair and research integrity.

PubMed

Grinnell, Frederick; Dalley, Simon; Shepherd, Karen; Reisch, Joan

2017-01-01

Research misconduct has become an important matter of concern in the scientific community. The extent to which such behavior occurs early in science education has received little attention. In the current study, using the web-based data collection program REDCap, we obtained responses to an anonymous and voluntary survey about science fair from 65 high school students who recently competed in the Dallas Regional Science and Engineering Fair and from 237 STEM-track, post-high school students (undergraduates, 1st year medical students, and 1st year biomedical graduate students) doing research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Of the post-high school students, 24% had competed in science fair during their high school education. Science fair experience was similar overall for the local cohort of Dallas regional students and the more diverse state/national cohort of post-high school students. Only one student out of 122 reported research misconduct, in his case making up the data. Unexpectedly, post-high school students who did not participate in science fair anticipated that carrying out science fair would be much more difficult than actually was the case, and 22% of the post-high school students anticipated that science fair participants would resort to research misconduct to overcome obstacles. No gender-based differences between students' science fair experiences or expectations were evident.

Emerging Engineering Fields: New Jobs in an Old Profession.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Gail M.

1980-01-01

Discusses career opportunities, educational requirements, and information sources in these emerging professions: environmental, biomedical, fire protection, ocean, energy, ceramic, and plastics engineering. (SK)

Fabrication of functional PLGA-based electrospun scaffolds and their applications in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Zhao, Wen; Li, Jiaojiao; Jin, Kaixiang; Liu, Wenlong; Qiu, Xuefeng; Li, Chenrui

2016-02-01

Electrospun PLGA-based scaffolds have been applied extensively in biomedical engineering, such as tissue engineering and drug delivery system. Due to lack of the recognition sites on cells, hydropholicity and single-function, the applications of PLGA fibrous scaffolds are limited. In order to tackle these issues, many works have been done to obtain functional PLGA-based scaffolds, including surface modifications, the fabrication of PLGA-based composite scaffolds and drug-loaded scaffolds. The functional PLGA-based scaffolds have significantly improved cell adhesion, attachment and proliferation. Moreover, the current study has summarized the applications of functional PLGA-based scaffolds in wound dressing, vascular and bone tissue engineering area as well as drug delivery system. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bottom-Up Engineering of Well-Defined 3D Microtissues Using Microplatforms and Biomedical Applications.

PubMed

Lee, Geon Hui; Lee, Jae Seo; Wang, Xiaohong; Lee, Sang Hoon

2016-01-07

During the last decades, the engineering of well-defined 3D tissues has attracted great attention because it provides in vivo mimicking environment and can be a building block for the engineering of bioartificial organs. In this Review, diverse engineering methods of 3D tissues using microscale devices are introduced. Recent progress of microtechnologies has enabled the development of microplatforms for bottom-up assembly of diverse shaped 3D tissues consisting of various cells. Micro hanging-drop plates, microfluidic chips, and arrayed microwells are the typical examples. The encapsulation of cells in hydrogel microspheres and microfibers allows the engineering of 3D microtissues with diverse shapes. Applications of 3D microtissues in biomedical fields are described, and the future direction of microplatform-based engineering of 3D micro-tissues is discussed. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Peer Relationships and the Biomedical Doctorate: A Key Component of the Contemporary Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kemp, Matthew W.; Molloy, Timothy J.; Pajic, Marina; Chapman, Elaine

2013-01-01

Little attention has been paid to the scholarship of doctoral education in the biomedical sciences, hindering the formulation of research-informed improvements to this important area of higher education. We present an analysis of interview data from Australian PhD students and suggest that relationships between students and their…

Promising iron oxide-based magnetic nanoparticles in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Tran, Phuong Ha-Lien; Tran, Thao Truong-Dinh; Vo, Toi Van; Lee, Beom-Jin

2012-12-01

For the past few decades biomedical engineering has imprinted its significant impact on the map of science through its wide applications on many other fields. An important example obviously proving this fact is the versatile application of magnetic nanoparticles in theranostics. Due to preferable properties such as biocompatibility, non-toxicity compared to other metal derivations, iron oxide-based magnetic nanoparticles was chosen to be addressed in this review. Aim of this review is to give the readers a whole working window of these magnetic nanoparticles in the current context of science. Thus, preparation of magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles with the so-far techniques, methods of characterizing the nanoparticles as well as their most recent biomedical applications will be stated.

Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar citation rates: a case study of medical physics and biomedical engineering: what gets cited and what doesn't?

PubMed

Trapp, Jamie

2016-12-01

There are often differences in a publication's citation count, depending on the database accessed. Here, aspects of citation counts for medical physics and biomedical engineering papers are studied using papers published in the journal Australasian physical and engineering sciences in medicine. Comparison is made between the Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar. Papers are categorised into subject matter, and citation trends are examined. It is shown that review papers as a group tend to receive more citations on average; however the highest cited individual papers are more likely to be research papers.

Biomedical Biopolymers, their Origin and Evolution in Biomedical Sciences: A Systematic Review

PubMed Central

Yadav, Harsh; Shah, Veena Gowri; Shah, Gaurav; Dhaka, Gaurav

2015-01-01

Biopolymers provide a plethora of applications in the pharmaceutical and medical applications. A material that can be used for biomedical applications like wound healing, drug delivery and tissue engineering should possess certain properties like biocompatibility, biodegradation to non-toxic products, low antigenicity, high bio-activity, processability to complicated shapes with appropriate porosity, ability to support cell growth and proliferation and appropriate mechanical properties, as well as maintaining mechanical strength. This paper reviews biodegradable biopolymers focusing on their potential in biomedical applications. Biopolymers most commonly used and most abundantly available have been described with focus on the properties relevant to biomedical importance. PMID:26501034

High school science fair and research integrity

PubMed Central

Dalley, Simon; Shepherd, Karen; Reisch, Joan

2017-01-01

Research misconduct has become an important matter of concern in the scientific community. The extent to which such behavior occurs early in science education has received little attention. In the current study, using the web-based data collection program REDCap, we obtained responses to an anonymous and voluntary survey about science fair from 65 high school students who recently competed in the Dallas Regional Science and Engineering Fair and from 237 STEM-track, post-high school students (undergraduates, 1st year medical students, and 1st year biomedical graduate students) doing research at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Of the post-high school students, 24% had competed in science fair during their high school education. Science fair experience was similar overall for the local cohort of Dallas regional students and the more diverse state/national cohort of post-high school students. Only one student out of 122 reported research misconduct, in his case making up the data. Unexpectedly, post-high school students who did not participate in science fair anticipated that carrying out science fair would be much more difficult than actually was the case, and 22% of the post-high school students anticipated that science fair participants would resort to research misconduct to overcome obstacles. No gender-based differences between students’ science fair experiences or expectations were evident. PMID:28328976

State-of-the-Art Opportunities. Hispanic Special Report: Careers in Engineering.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heller, Michele

1992-01-01

Although the demand for electrical, defense, and computer science engineers has dropped sharply, opportunities exist for Hispanics in computer communication and integration, miniaturization of electronic components, environmental, and genetic and biomedical engineering. Engineers should diversify their skills to adapt to the changing field. (KS)

A neural joint model for entity and relation extraction from biomedical text.

PubMed

Li, Fei; Zhang, Meishan; Fu, Guohong; Ji, Donghong

2017-03-31

Extracting biomedical entities and their relations from text has important applications on biomedical research. Previous work primarily utilized feature-based pipeline models to process this task. Many efforts need to be made on feature engineering when feature-based models are employed. Moreover, pipeline models may suffer error propagation and are not able to utilize the interactions between subtasks. Therefore, we propose a neural joint model to extract biomedical entities as well as their relations simultaneously, and it can alleviate the problems above. Our model was evaluated on two tasks, i.e., the task of extracting adverse drug events between drug and disease entities, and the task of extracting resident relations between bacteria and location entities. Compared with the state-of-the-art systems in these tasks, our model improved the F1 scores of the first task by 5.1% in entity recognition and 8.0% in relation extraction, and that of the second task by 9.2% in relation extraction. The proposed model achieves competitive performances with less work on feature engineering. We demonstrate that the model based on neural networks is effective for biomedical entity and relation extraction. In addition, parameter sharing is an alternative method for neural models to jointly process this task. Our work can facilitate the research on biomedical text mining.

Designing, Implementing and Maintaining a First Year Project Course in Electrical Engineering

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lillieskold, J.; Ostlund, S.

2008-01-01

Being a modern electrical engineer does not only require state of the art skills in areas such as transfer and processing of information, electronics, systems engineering, and biomedical electrical engineering; it also requires generic engineering skills such as oral and written communication, team building, interpersonal skills, and the ability…

The California State University, Los Angeles Biomedical Sciences Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gutierrez, Carlos G.; Brown, Costello L.

The Biomedical Sciences Program at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA), is described. The federally funded program was designed to help economically disadvantaged students to pursue careers in biomedical sciences. The program provided academic support in mathematics, science, and English; study skills development; experiences in…

PhysioNet: physiologic signals, time series and related open source software for basic, clinical, and applied research.

PubMed

Moody, George B; Mark, Roger G; Goldberger, Ary L

2011-01-01

PhysioNet provides free web access to over 50 collections of recorded physiologic signals and time series, and related open-source software, in support of basic, clinical, and applied research in medicine, physiology, public health, biomedical engineering and computing, and medical instrument design and evaluation. Its three components (PhysioBank, the archive of signals; PhysioToolkit, the software library; and PhysioNetWorks, the virtual laboratory for collaborative development of future PhysioBank data collections and PhysioToolkit software components) connect researchers and students who need physiologic signals and relevant software with researchers who have data and software to share. PhysioNet's annual open engineering challenges stimulate rapid progress on unsolved or poorly solved questions of basic or clinical interest, by focusing attention on achievable solutions that can be evaluated and compared objectively using freely available reference data.

Career and Technology Center Guides Students in Real-Life Careers | Poster

Cancer.gov

By Carolynne Keenan, Contributing Writer Frederick County Public School students have a unique opportunity—a chance to get a real-world, hands-on experience in biomedical science and biotechnology before they even graduate from high school, thanks to the Frederick County Career and Technology Center (CTC). Several years ago, the CTC established its biomedical sciences program

Biomedical Knowledge and Clinical Expertise.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boshuizen, Henny P. A.; Schmidt, Henk G.

A study examined the application and availability of clinical and biomedical knowledge in the clinical reasoning of physicians as well as possible mechanisms responsible for changes in the organization of clinical and biomedical knowledge in the development from novice to expert. Subjects were 28 students (10 second year, 8 fourth year, and 10…

78 FR 76843 - National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Announcement of Requirements...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-12-19

... NIBIB Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) Challenge Authority: 15 U.S.C. 3719. SUMMARY: The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) DEBUT Challenge is open to teams of... students valuable experiences such as working in teams, identifying unmet clinical needs, and designing...

Character-level neural network for biomedical named entity recognition.

PubMed

Gridach, Mourad

2017-06-01

Biomedical named entity recognition (BNER), which extracts important named entities such as genes and proteins, is a challenging task in automated systems that mine knowledge in biomedical texts. The previous state-of-the-art systems required large amounts of task-specific knowledge in the form of feature engineering, lexicons and data pre-processing to achieve high performance. In this paper, we introduce a novel neural network architecture that benefits from both word- and character-level representations automatically, by using a combination of bidirectional long short-term memory (LSTM) and conditional random field (CRF) eliminating the need for most feature engineering tasks. We evaluate our system on two datasets: JNLPBA corpus and the BioCreAtIvE II Gene Mention (GM) corpus. We obtained state-of-the-art performance by outperforming the previous systems. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to investigate the combination of deep neural networks, CRF, word embeddings and character-level representation in recognizing biomedical named entities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Career Coaches as a Source of Vicarious Learning for Racial and Ethnic Minority PhD Students in the Biomedical Sciences: A Qualitative Study

PubMed Central

Williams, Simon N.; Thakore, Bhoomi K.; McGee, Richard

2016-01-01

Introduction Many recent mentoring initiatives have sought to help improve the proportion of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities (URMs) in academic positions across the biomedical sciences. However, the intractable nature of the problem of underrepresentation suggests that many young scientists may require supplemental career development beyond what many mentors are able to offer. As an adjunct to traditional scientific mentoring, we created a novel academic career “coaching” intervention for PhD students in the biomedical sciences. Objective To determine whether and how academic career coaches can provide effective career-development-related learning experiences for URM PhD students in the biomedical sciences. We focus specifically on vicarious learning experiences, where individuals learn indirectly through the experiences of others. Method The intervention is being tested as part of a longitudinal randomized control trial (RCT). Here, we describe a nested qualitative study, using a framework approach to analyze data from a total of 48 semi-structured interviews from 24 URM PhD students (2 interviews per participant, 1 at baseline, 1 at 12-month follow-up) (16 female, 8 male; 11 Black, 12 Hispanic, 1 Native-American). We explored the role of the coach as a source of vicarious learning, in relation to the students’ goal of being future biomedical science faculty. Results Coaches were resources through which most students in the study were able to learn vicariously about how to pursue, and succeed within, an academic career. Coaches were particularly useful in instances where students’ research mentors are unable to provide such vicarious learning opportunities, for example because the mentor is too busy to have career-related discussions with a student, or because they have, or value, a different type of academic career to the type the student hopes to achieve. Implications Coaching can be an important way to address the lack of structured career development that students receive in their home training environment. PMID:27467084

[Projects to accelerate the practical use of innovative medical devices to collaborate with TWIns, Center for Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Waseda University and School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo].

PubMed

Niimi, Shingo; Umezu, Mitsuo; Iseki, Hiroshi; Harada, Hiroshi Kasanuki Noboru; Mitsuishi, Mamoru; Kitamori, Takehiko; Tei, Yuichi; Nakaoka, Ryusuke; Haishima, Yuji

2014-01-01

Division of Medical Devices has been conducting the projects to accelerate the practical use of innovative medical devices to collaborate with TWIns, Center for Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Waseda University and School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo. The TWIns has been studying to aim at establishment of preclinical evaluation methods by "Engineering Based Medicine", and established Regulatory Science Institute for Medical Devices. School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo has been studying to aim at establishment of assessment methodology for innovative minimally invasive therapeutic devices, materials, and nanobio diagnostic devices. This report reviews the exchanges of personnel, the implement systems and the research progress of these projects.

Women in biomedical engineering and health informatics and its impact on gender representation for accepted publications at IEEE EMBC 2007.

PubMed

McGregor, Carolyn; Smith, Kathleen P; Percival, Jennifer

2008-01-01

The study of women within the professions of Engineering and Computer Science has consistently been found to demonstrate women as a minority within these professions. However none of that previous work has assessed publication behaviours based on gender. This paper presents research findings on gender distribution of authors of accepted papers for the IEEE Engineering and Medicine Society annual conference for 2007 (EMBC '07) held in Lyon, France. This information is used to present a position statement of the current state of gender representation for conference publication within the domain of biomedical engineering and health informatics. Issues in data preparation resulting from the lack of inclusion of gender in information gathered from accepted authors are presented and discussed.

An analysis of reported motivational orientation in students undertaking doctoral studies in the biomedical sciences

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background As the source of a sizeable percentage of research output and the future arbiters of science policy, practice and direction, doctoral (Ph.D.) students represent a key demographic in the biomedical research community. Despite this, doctoral learning in the biomedical sciences has, to date, received little research attention. Methods In the present study we aimed to qualitatively describe the motivational orientations present in semi-structured interview transcripts from a cohort of seventeen biomedical Ph.D. students drawn from two research intensive Australian Group of Eight universities. Results Applying elements of self-determination theory, external and introjected control loci (both strongly associated with alienation, disengagement and poor learning outcomes) were identified as common motivational determinants in this cohort. Conclusions The importance of these findings to doctoral learning is discussed in light of previous research undertaken in higher education settings in the United States and the European Union. With motivation accepted as a malleable, context-sensitive factor, these data provide for both a better understanding of doctoral learning and highlight a potential avenue for future research aimed at improving outcomes and promoting meaningful learning processes in the biomedical doctorate. PMID:24571918

Biomedical Science, Unit II: Nutrition in Health and Medicine. Digestion of Foods; Organic Chemistry of Nutrients; Energy and Cell Respiration; The Optimal Diet; Foodborne Diseases; Food Technology; Dental Science and Nutrition. Student Text. Revised Version, 1975.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project, Berkeley, CA.

This student text presents instructional materials for a unit of science within the Biomedical Interdisciplinary Curriculum Project (BICP), a two-year interdisciplinary precollege curriculum aimed at preparing high school students for entry into college and vocational programs leading to a career in the health field. Lessons concentrate on…

BioTCM-SE: a semantic search engine for the information retrieval of modern biology and traditional Chinese medicine.

PubMed

Chen, Xi; Chen, Huajun; Bi, Xuan; Gu, Peiqin; Chen, Jiaoyan; Wu, Zhaohui

2014-01-01

Understanding the functional mechanisms of the complex biological system as a whole is drawing more and more attention in global health care management. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), essentially different from Western Medicine (WM), is gaining increasing attention due to its emphasis on individual wellness and natural herbal medicine, which satisfies the goal of integrative medicine. However, with the explosive growth of biomedical data on the Web, biomedical researchers are now confronted with the problem of large-scale data analysis and data query. Besides that, biomedical data also has a wide coverage which usually comes from multiple heterogeneous data sources and has different taxonomies, making it hard to integrate and query the big biomedical data. Embedded with domain knowledge from different disciplines all regarding human biological systems, the heterogeneous data repositories are implicitly connected by human expert knowledge. Traditional search engines cannot provide accurate and comprehensive search results for the semantically associated knowledge since they only support keywords-based searches. In this paper, we present BioTCM-SE, a semantic search engine for the information retrieval of modern biology and TCM, which provides biologists with a comprehensive and accurate associated knowledge query platform to greatly facilitate the implicit knowledge discovery between WM and TCM.

BioTCM-SE: A Semantic Search Engine for the Information Retrieval of Modern Biology and Traditional Chinese Medicine

PubMed Central

Chen, Xi; Chen, Huajun; Bi, Xuan; Gu, Peiqin; Chen, Jiaoyan; Wu, Zhaohui

2014-01-01

Understanding the functional mechanisms of the complex biological system as a whole is drawing more and more attention in global health care management. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), essentially different from Western Medicine (WM), is gaining increasing attention due to its emphasis on individual wellness and natural herbal medicine, which satisfies the goal of integrative medicine. However, with the explosive growth of biomedical data on the Web, biomedical researchers are now confronted with the problem of large-scale data analysis and data query. Besides that, biomedical data also has a wide coverage which usually comes from multiple heterogeneous data sources and has different taxonomies, making it hard to integrate and query the big biomedical data. Embedded with domain knowledge from different disciplines all regarding human biological systems, the heterogeneous data repositories are implicitly connected by human expert knowledge. Traditional search engines cannot provide accurate and comprehensive search results for the semantically associated knowledge since they only support keywords-based searches. In this paper, we present BioTCM-SE, a semantic search engine for the information retrieval of modern biology and TCM, which provides biologists with a comprehensive and accurate associated knowledge query platform to greatly facilitate the implicit knowledge discovery between WM and TCM. PMID:24772189

Synthesis and optimization of chitosan nanoparticles: Potential applications in nanomedicine and biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Ghadi, Arezou; Mahjoub, Soleiman; Tabandeh, Fatemeh; Talebnia, Farid

2014-01-01

Chitosan nanoparticles have become of great interest for nanomedicine, biomedical engineering and development of new therapeutic drug release systems with improved bioavailability, increased specificity and sensitivity, and reduced pharmacological toxicity. The aim of the present study was to synthesis and optimize of the chitosan nanoparticles for industrial and biomedical applications. Fe3O4 was synthesized and optimized as magnetic core nanoparticles and then chitosan covered this magnetic core. The size and morphology of the nano-magnetic chitosan was analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM). Topography and size distribution of the nanoparticles were shown with two-dimensional and three-dimensional images of atomic force microscopy (AFM). The nanoparticles were analyzed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The chitosan nanoparticles prepared in the experiment exhibited white powder shape. The SEM micrographs of the nano-magnetic chitosan showed that they were approximately uniform spheres. The unmodified chitosan nanoparticles composed of clusters of nanoparticles with sizes ranging from 10 nm to 80 nm. AFM provides a three-dimensional surface profile. The TEM image showed physical aggregation of the chitosan nanoparticles. The results show that a novel chitosan nanoparticle was successfully synthesized and characterized. It seems that this nanoparticle like the other chitosan nano particles has potential applications for nanomedicine, biomedical engineering, industrial and pharmaceutical fields.

An Approach to Integrating Health Disparities within Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Education.

PubMed

Vazquez, Maribel; Marte, Otto; Barba, Joseph; Hubbard, Karen

2017-11-01

Health disparities are preventable differences in the incidence, prevalence and burden of disease among communities targeted by gender, geographic location, ethnicity and/or socio-economic status. While biomedical research has identified partial origin(s) of divergent burden and impact of disease, the innovation needed to eradicate health disparities in the United States requires unique engagement from biomedical engineers. Increasing awareness of the prevalence and consequences of health disparities is particularly attractive to today's undergraduates, who have undauntedly challenged paradigms believed to foster inequality. Here, the Department of Biomedical Engineering at The City College of New York (CCNY) has leveraged its historical mission of access-and-excellence to integrate the study of health disparities into undergraduate BME curricula. This article describes our novel approach in a multiyear study that: (i) Integrated health disparities modules at all levels of the required undergraduate BME curriculum; (ii) Developed opportunities to include impacts of health disparities into undergraduate BME research projects and mentored High School summer STEM training; and (iii) Established health disparities-based challenges as BME capstone design and/or independent entrepreneurship projects. Results illustrate the rising awareness of health disparities among the youngest BMEs-to-be, as well as abundant undergraduate desire to integrate health disparities within BME education and training.

Chemical Engineering in the "BIO" World.

PubMed

Chiarappa, Gianluca; Grassi, Mario; Abrami, Michela; Abbiati, Roberto Andrea; Barba, Anna Angela; Boisen, Anja; Brucato, Valerio; Ghersi, Giulio; Caccavo, Diego; Cascone, Sara; Caserta, Sergio; Elvassore, Nicola; Giomo, Monica; Guido, Stefano; Lamberti, Gaetano; Larobina, Domenico; Manca, Davide; Marizza, Paolo; Tomaiuolo, Giovanna; Grassi, Gabriele

2017-01-01

Modern Chemical Engineering was born around the end of the 19th century in Great Britain, Germany, and the USA, the most industrialized countries at that time. Milton C. Whitaker, in 1914, affirmed that the difference between Chemistry and Chemical Engineering lies in the capability of chemical engineers to transfer laboratory findings to the industrial level. Since then, Chemical Engineering underwent huge transformations determining the detachment from the original Chemistry nest. The beginning of the sixties of the 20th century saw the development of a new branch of Chemical Engineering baptized Biomedical Engineering by Peppas and Langer and that now we can name Biological Engineering. Interestingly, although Biological Engineering focused on completely different topics from Chemical Engineering ones, it resorted to the same theoretical tools such as, for instance, mass, energy and momentum balances. Thus, the birth of Biological Engineering may be considered as a Darwinian evolution of Chemical Engineering similar to that experienced by mammals which, returning to water, used legs and arms to swim. From 1960 on, Biological Engineering underwent a considerable evolution as witnessed by the great variety of topics covered such as hemodialysis, release of synthetic drugs, artificial organs and, more recently, delivery of small interfering RNAs (siRNA). This review, based on the activities developed in the frame of our PRIN 2010-11 (20109PLMH2) project, tries to recount origins and evolution of Chemical Engineering illustrating several examples of recent and successful applications in the biological field. This, in turn, may stimulate the discussion about the Chemical Engineering students curriculum studiorum update. Copyright© Bentham Science Publishers; For any queries, please email at epub@benthamscience.org.

Overview on zein protein: a promising pharmaceutical excipient in drug delivery systems and tissue engineering.

PubMed

Labib, Gihan

2018-01-01

Natural pharmaceutical excipients have been applied extensively in the past decades owing to their safety and biocompatibility. Zein, a natural protein of plant origin offers great benefit over other synthetic polymers used in controlled drug and biomedical delivery systems. It was used in a variety of medical fields including pharmaceutical and biomedical drug targeting, vaccine, tissue engineering, and gene delivery. Being biodegradable and biocompatible, the current review focuses on the history and the medical application of zein as an attractive still promising biopolymer. Areas covered: The current review gives a broadscope on zein as a still promising protein excipient in different fields. Zein- based drug and biomedical delivery systems are discussed with special focus on current and potential application in controlled drug delivery systems, and tissue engineering. Expert opinion: Zein as a protein of natural origin can still be considered a promising polymer in the field of drug delivery systems as well as in tissue engineering. Although different researchers spotted light on zein application in different industrial fields extensively, the feasibility of its use in the field of drug delivery replenished by investigators in recent years has not yet been fully approached.

Passage-Based Bibliographic Coupling: An Inter-Article Similarity Measure for Biomedical Articles

PubMed Central

Liu, Rey-Long

2015-01-01

Biomedical literature is an essential source of biomedical evidence. To translate the evidence for biomedicine study, researchers often need to carefully read multiple articles about specific biomedical issues. These articles thus need to be highly related to each other. They should share similar core contents, including research goals, methods, and findings. However, given an article r, it is challenging for search engines to retrieve highly related articles for r. In this paper, we present a technique PBC (Passage-based Bibliographic Coupling) that estimates inter-article similarity by seamlessly integrating bibliographic coupling with the information collected from context passages around important out-link citations (references) in each article. Empirical evaluation shows that PBC can significantly improve the retrieval of those articles that biomedical experts believe to be highly related to specific articles about gene-disease associations. PBC can thus be used to improve search engines in retrieving the highly related articles for any given article r, even when r is cited by very few (or even no) articles. The contribution is essential for those researchers and text mining systems that aim at cross-validating the evidence about specific gene-disease associations. PMID:26440794

Passage-Based Bibliographic Coupling: An Inter-Article Similarity Measure for Biomedical Articles.

PubMed

Liu, Rey-Long

2015-01-01

Biomedical literature is an essential source of biomedical evidence. To translate the evidence for biomedicine study, researchers often need to carefully read multiple articles about specific biomedical issues. These articles thus need to be highly related to each other. They should share similar core contents, including research goals, methods, and findings. However, given an article r, it is challenging for search engines to retrieve highly related articles for r. In this paper, we present a technique PBC (Passage-based Bibliographic Coupling) that estimates inter-article similarity by seamlessly integrating bibliographic coupling with the information collected from context passages around important out-link citations (references) in each article. Empirical evaluation shows that PBC can significantly improve the retrieval of those articles that biomedical experts believe to be highly related to specific articles about gene-disease associations. PBC can thus be used to improve search engines in retrieving the highly related articles for any given article r, even when r is cited by very few (or even no) articles. The contribution is essential for those researchers and text mining systems that aim at cross-validating the evidence about specific gene-disease associations.

e-Science platform for translational biomedical imaging research: running, statistics, and analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Tusheng; Yang, Yuanyuan; Zhang, Kai; Wang, Mingqing; Zhao, Jun; Xu, Lisa; Zhang, Jianguo

2015-03-01

In order to enable multiple disciplines of medical researchers, clinical physicians and biomedical engineers working together in a secured, efficient, and transparent cooperative environment, we had designed an e-Science platform for biomedical imaging research and application cross multiple academic institutions and hospitals in Shanghai and presented this work in SPIE Medical Imaging conference held in San Diego in 2012. In past the two-years, we implemented a biomedical image chain including communication, storage, cooperation and computing based on this e-Science platform. In this presentation, we presented the operating status of this system in supporting biomedical imaging research, analyzed and discussed results of this system in supporting multi-disciplines collaboration cross-multiple institutions.

Research in Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering: Achievements and perspectives.

PubMed

Ventre, Maurizio; Causa, Filippo; Netti, Paolo A; Pietrabissa, Riccardo

2015-01-01

Research on biomaterials and related subjects has been active in Italy. Starting from the very first examples of biomaterials and biomedical devices, Italian researchers have always provided valuable scientific contributions. This trend has steadily increased. To provide a rough estimate of this, it is sufficient to search PubMed, a free search engine accessing primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics, with the keywords "biomaterials" or "tissue engineering" and sort the results by affiliation. Again, even though this is a crude estimate, the results speak for themselves, as Italy is the third European country, in terms of publications, with an astonishing 3,700 products in the last decade.

The Ten Outstanding Engineering Achievements of the Past 50 Years.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hightower, George

1984-01-01

Describes the outstanding achievement in each of 10 major engineering categories. These categories include synthetic fibers, nuclear energy, computers, solid state electronics, jet aircraft, biomedical engineering, lasers, communications satellites, the United States space program, and automation and control systems. (JN)

Engaging Undergraduates to Solve Global Health Challenges: A New Approach Based on Bioengineering Design

PubMed Central

Oden, Maria; Mirabal, Yvette; Epstein, Marc

2010-01-01

Recent reports have highlighted the need for educational programs to prepare students for careers developing and disseminating new interventions that improve global public health. Because of its multi-disciplinary, design-centered nature, the field of Biomedical Engineering can play an important role in meeting this challenge. This article describes a new program at Rice University to give undergraduate students from all disciplines a broad background in bioengineering and global health and provides an initial assessment of program impact. Working in partnership with health care providers in developing countries, students in the Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB) initiative learn about health challenges of the poor and put this knowledge to work immediately, using the engineering design process as a framework to formulate solutions to complex global health challenges. Beginning with a freshman design project and continuing through a capstone senior design course, the BTB curriculum uses challenges provided by partners in the developing world to teach students to integrate perspectives from multiple disciplines, and to develop leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. Exceptional students implement their designs under the guidance of clinicians through summer international internships. Since 2006, 333 students have designed more than 40 technologies and educational programs; 28 have been implemented in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, southeast Asia, and the United States. More than 18,000 people have benefited from these designs. 95% of alumni who completed an international internship reported that participation in the program changed or strengthened their career plans to include a focus on global health medicine, research, and/or policy. Empowering students to use bioengineering design to address real problems is an effective way to teach the new generation of leaders needed to solve global health challenges. PMID:20387116

Racial and Ethnic Differences in Students' Selection of a Doctoral Program to Attend From Those Offering Admission: The Case of Biomedical Sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bar, Donald A.; Wanat, Stan; Gonzalez, Mariaelena

Most graduate training programs in the biomedical sciences try to attract qualified candidates from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups; however, some universities have more success than others in enrolling students to whom admission is offered. In order to better understand how students select the school they will attend from those offering admission, we studied the experience of two cohorts of applicants to a doctoral program in the biomedical sciences at Stanford University. Based on interviews with 59 students, we conclude that students use different criteria in deciding the schools to which they will apply than they do in selecting the school they will attend from those offering admission. While we found striking consistency across racial and ethnic groups in the criteria used in selecting schools for application, we found clear differences in the factors affecting the choice of school to attend. Especially for Latino and African American students, the perceived quality of the interpersonal environment and a sense of inclusion were key determinants in selecting the school to attend. In this regard, Latino students found the environment at Stanford more welcoming than African American students did.

Enrichment programs to create a pipeline to biomedical science careers.

PubMed

Cregler, L L

1993-01-01

The Student Educational Enrichment Programs at the Medical College of Georgia in the School of Medicine were created to increase underrepresented minorities in the pipeline to biomedical science careers. Eight-week summer programs are conducted for high school, research apprentice, and intermediate and advanced college students. There is a prematriculation program for accepted medical, dental, and graduate students. Between 1979 and 1990, 245 high school students attended 12 summer programs. Of these, 240 (98%) entered college 1 year later. In 1986, after eight programs, 162 (68%) high school participants graduated from college with a baccalaureate degree, and 127 responded to a follow-up survey. Sixty-two (49%) of the college graduates attended health science schools, and 23 (18%) of these matriculated to medical school. Of college students, 504 participated in 13 summer programs. Four hundred (79%) of these students responded to a questionnaire, which indicated that 348 (87%) of the 400 entered health science occupations and/or professional schools; 179 (45%) of these students matriculated to medical school. Minority students participating in enrichment programs have greater success in gaining acceptance to college and professional school. These data suggest that early enrichment initiatives increase the number of underrepresented minorities in the biomedical science pipeline.

Camera systems in human motion analysis for biomedical applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chin, Lim Chee; Basah, Shafriza Nisha; Yaacob, Sazali; Juan, Yeap Ewe; Kadir, Aida Khairunnisaa Ab.

2015-05-01

Human Motion Analysis (HMA) system has been one of the major interests among researchers in the field of computer vision, artificial intelligence and biomedical engineering and sciences. This is due to its wide and promising biomedical applications, namely, bio-instrumentation for human computer interfacing and surveillance system for monitoring human behaviour as well as analysis of biomedical signal and image processing for diagnosis and rehabilitation applications. This paper provides an extensive review of the camera system of HMA, its taxonomy, including camera types, camera calibration and camera configuration. The review focused on evaluating the camera system consideration of the HMA system specifically for biomedical applications. This review is important as it provides guidelines and recommendation for researchers and practitioners in selecting a camera system of the HMA system for biomedical applications.

Sensitive magnetic sensors without cooling in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Nowak, H; Strähmel, E; Giessler, F; Rinneberg, G; Haueisen, J

2003-01-01

Magnetic field sensors are used in various fields of technology. In the past few years a large variety of magnetic field sensors has been established and the performance of these sensors has been improved enormously. In this review article all recent developments in the area of sensitive magnetic field sensory analysis (resolution better than 1 nT) are presented and examined regarding their parameters. This is mainly done under the aspect of application fields in biomedical engineering. A comparison of all commercial and available sensitive magnetic field sensors shows current and prospective ranges of application.

Evan Weaver | NREL

Science.gov Websites

Evan Weaver Photo of Evan Weaver Evan Weaver Researcher III-Software Engineering Evan.Weaver , he works as a software engineer developing whole-building energy modeling tools. Prior to joining NREL, he worked in the biomedical industry as a software engineer, specializing in graphical user

An engineering paradigm in the biomedical sciences: Knowledge as epistemic tool.

PubMed

Boon, Mieke

2017-10-01

In order to deal with the complexity of biological systems and attempts to generate applicable results, current biomedical sciences are adopting concepts and methods from the engineering sciences. Philosophers of science have interpreted this as the emergence of an engineering paradigm, in particular in systems biology and synthetic biology. This article aims at the articulation of the supposed engineering paradigm by contrast with the physics paradigm that supported the rise of biochemistry and molecular biology. This articulation starts from Kuhn's notion of a disciplinary matrix, which indicates what constitutes a paradigm. It is argued that the core of the physics paradigm is its metaphysical and ontological presuppositions, whereas the core of the engineering paradigm is the epistemic aim of producing useful knowledge for solving problems external to the scientific practice. Therefore, the two paradigms involve distinct notions of knowledge. Whereas the physics paradigm entails a representational notion of knowledge, the engineering paradigm involves the notion of 'knowledge as epistemic tool'. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Specialized project in biophotonics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garcia Martin, Agueda L.; Sastriques-Silva, Pedro O.; Martinez-Fundora, Julia N.; Augier Calderin, Angel G.; Lopez-Cepero, Xonia

2000-06-01

As science advances, it is more evident the necessity of a health interdisciplinary approach in Medicine. In the case of medical applications of light, the knowledge of the use of dispositives, equipment, diagnostic and treatment means, as well as the bases for the use of this update technologies is required. At the present moment, the outstanding work of specialized professionals of different profiles requires personnel with high professional formation in keeping with the latest trends in science and technology. The authors present here an Specialized Project in Biophotonics, with the aim of increasing the professional preparation of university graduates with an ample profile--physicists and engineers--who work in Biomedical Optics, thus contributing to the specialized formation of medic and paramedic personnel. The course is structured into six-subject-modules and into two phases. As to the basic professional formation, each one attending this course, will select between two variants of the Basic Formation Postgraduate Course: Anatomy and Physiology, Physical Bioenergetics, Clinic Bioenergetics; or Physics in Medicine, Optics and Applied Information Theory, depending on the student's professional profile. In the second phase, the General Formation Postgraduate Course: Biomedical Optics, Optical Bioenergetics and Laser in Medicine.

Thermomechanical Properties of Polylactic Acid-Graphene Composites: A State-of-the-Art Review for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Due to its biodegradable and bioabsorbable characteristics polylactic acid (PLA) has attracted considerable attention for numerous biomedical applications. Moreover, a number of tissue engineering problems for function restoration of impaired tissues have been addressed by using PLA and its copolymers due to their biocompatibility and distinctive mechanical properties. Recent studies on various stereocomplex formation between enantiomeric PLA, poly(l-lactide) (PLLA) and poly(d-lactide) (PDLA) indicated that stereocomplexation enhances the mechanical properties as well as the thermal- and hydrolysis-resistance of PLA polymers. On the other hand, biomedical application of graphene is a relatively new front with significant potential. Many recent reports have indicated that understanding of graphene-cell (or tissue, organ) interactions; particularly the cellular uptake mechanisms are still challenging. Therefore, use of graphene or graphene oxide properly embedded in suitable PLA matrices can positively impact and accelerate the growth, differentiation, and proliferation of stem cells, conceivably minimizing concerns over cytotoxicity of graphene. As such, PLA-graphene composites hold great promise in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and in other biomedical fields. However, since PLA is classified as a hard bio-polyester prone to hydrolysis, understanding and engineering of thermo-mechanical properties of PLA-graphene composites are very crucial for such cutting-edge applications. Hence, this review aims to present an overview of current advances in the preparation and applications of PLA-graphene composites and their properties with focus on various biomedical uses such as scaffolds, drug delivery, cancer therapy, and biological imaging, together with a brief discussion on the challenges and perspectives for future research in this field. PMID:28773109

Polymer-Based Electrospun Nanofibers for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Al-Enizi, Abdullah M.; Zagho, Moustafa M.

2018-01-01

Electrospinning has been considered a promising and novel procedure to fabricate polymer nanofibers due to its simplicity, cost effectiveness, and high production rate, making this technique highly relevant for both industry and academia. It is used to fabricate non-woven fibers with unique characteristics such as high permeability, stability, porosity, surface area to volume ratio, ease of functionalization, and excellent mechanical performance. Nanofibers can be synthesized and tailored to suit a wide range of applications including energy, biotechnology, healthcare, and environmental engineering. A comprehensive outlook on the recent developments, and the influence of electrospinning on biomedical uses such as wound dressing, drug release, and tissue engineering, has been presented. Concerns regarding the procedural restrictions and research contests are addressed, in addition to providing insights about the future of this fabrication technique in the biomedical field. PMID:29677145

Weak Bond-Based Injectable and Stimuli Responsive Hydrogels for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

Ding, Xiaochu; Wang, Yadong

2017-01-01

Here we define hydrogels crosslinked by weak bonds as physical hydrogels. They possess unique features including reversible bonding, shear thinning and stimuli-responsiveness. Unlike covalently crosslinked hydrogels, physical hydrogels do not require triggers to initiate chemical reactions for in situ gelation. The drug can be fully loaded in a pre-formed hydrogel for delivery with minimal cargo leakage during injection. These benefits make physical hydrogels useful as delivery vehicles for applications in biomedical engineering. This review focuses on recent advances of physical hydrogels crosslinked by weak bonds: hydrogen bonds, ionic interactions, host-guest chemistry, hydrophobic interactions, coordination bonds and π-π stacking interactions. Understanding the principles and the state of the art of gels with these dynamic bonds may give rise to breakthroughs in many biomedical research areas including drug delivery and tissue engineering. PMID:29062484

The Emergence of a Community of Practice in Engineering Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kolikant, Yifat Ben-David; McKenna, Ann; Yalvac, Bugrahan

2006-01-01

This chapter describes how engineering faculty and learning scientists developed a collective wisdom--shared language, capabilities, and world view--in order to work together to achieve a common goal of developing course materials in the domain of biomedical engineering. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

New roles & responsibilities of hospital biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Frisch, P H; Stone, B; Booth, P; Lui, W

2014-01-01

Over the last decade the changing healthcare environment has required hospitals and specifically Biomedical Engineering to critically evaluate, optimize and adapt their operations. The focus is now on new technologies, changes to the environment of care, support requirements and financial constraints. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), an NIH-designated comprehensive cancer center, has been transitioning to an increasing outpatient care environment. This transition is driving an increase in-patient acuity coupled with the need for added urgency of support and response time. New technologies, regulatory requirements and financial constraints have impacted operating budgets and in some cases, resulted in a reduction in staffing. Specific initiatives, such as the Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goals, requirements for an electronic medical record, meaningful use and ICD10 have caused institutions to reevaluate their operations and processes including requiring Biomedical Engineering to manage new technologies, integrations and changes in the electromagnetic environment, while optimizing operational workflow and resource utilization. This paper addresses the new and expanding responsibilities and approach of Biomedical Engineering organizations, specifically at MSKCC. It is suggested that our experience may be a template for other organizations facing similar problems. Increasing support is necessary for Medical Software - Medical Device Data Systems in the evolving wireless environment, including RTLS and RFID. It will be necessary to evaluate the potential impact on the growing electromagnetic environment, on connectivity resulting in the need for dynamic and interactive testing and the growing demand to establish new and needed operational synergies with Information Technology operations and other operational groups within the institution, such as nursing, facilities management, central supply, and the user departments.

Biotechnology Apprenticeship for Secondary-Level Students: Teaching Advanced Cell Culture Techniques for Research

PubMed Central

Lewis, Jennifer R.; Kotur, Mark S.; Butt, Omar; Kulcarni, Sumant; Riley, Alyssa A.; Ferrell, Nick; Sullivan, Kathryn D.; Ferrari, Mauro

2002-01-01

The purpose of this article is to discuss small-group apprenticeships (SGAs) as a method to instruct cell culture techniques to high school participants. The study aimed to teach cell culture practices and to introduce advanced imaging techniques to solve various biomedical engineering problems. Participants designed and completed experiments using both flow cytometry and laser scanning cytometry during the 1-month summer apprenticeship. In addition to effectively and efficiently teaching cell biology laboratory techniques, this course design provided an opportunity for research training, career exploration, and mentoring. Students participated in active research projects, working with a skilled interdisciplinary team of researchers in a large research institution with access to state-of-the-art instrumentation. The instructors, composed of graduate students, laboratory managers, and principal investigators, worked well together to present a real and worthwhile research experience. The students enjoyed learning cell culture techniques while contributing to active research projects. The institution's researchers were equally enthusiastic to instruct and serve as mentors. In this article, we clarify and illuminate the value of small-group laboratory apprenticeships to the institution and the students by presenting the results and experiences of seven middle and high school participants and their instructors. PMID:12587031

Biotechnology apprenticeship for secondary-level students: teaching advanced cell culture techniques for research.

PubMed

Lewis, Jennifer R; Kotur, Mark S; Butt, Omar; Kulcarni, Sumant; Riley, Alyssa A; Ferrell, Nick; Sullivan, Kathryn D; Ferrari, Mauro

2002-01-01

The purpose of this article is to discuss small-group apprenticeships (SGAs) as a method to instruct cell culture techniques to high school participants. The study aimed to teach cell culture practices and to introduce advanced imaging techniques to solve various biomedical engineering problems. Participants designed and completed experiments using both flow cytometry and laser scanning cytometry during the 1-month summer apprenticeship. In addition to effectively and efficiently teaching cell biology laboratory techniques, this course design provided an opportunity for research training, career exploration, and mentoring. Students participated in active research projects, working with a skilled interdisciplinary team of researchers in a large research institution with access to state-of-the-art instrumentation. The instructors, composed of graduate students, laboratory managers, and principal investigators, worked well together to present a real and worthwhile research experience. The students enjoyed learning cell culture techniques while contributing to active research projects. The institution's researchers were equally enthusiastic to instruct and serve as mentors. In this article, we clarify and illuminate the value of small-group laboratory apprenticeships to the institution and the students by presenting the results and experiences of seven middle and high school participants and their instructors.

Evaluating a Chat Reference Service at the University of South Alabama's Baugh Biomedical Library

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clanton, Clista C.; Staggs, Geneva B.; Williams, Thomas L.

2006-01-01

The University of South Alabama's Baugh Biomedical Library recently initiated a chat reference service targeted at distance education students in the biomedical sciences. After one year of service, the library conducted an evaluation of the chat reference to assess the success of this mode of reference service. Both traditional reference and…

Negotiating your first BME job: Do's and don'ts in academia, private sector and government.

PubMed

Linte, Cristian A

2010-01-01

This session is intended to prepare current bioengineering students and post-doctoral fellows, getting them in the right shape to apply, negotiate and succeed in getting their first job in industry or academia. Tips on putting together the appropriate CV, preparing your portfolio and getting ready for the interview will be covered by the invited speakers. The panel will consist of representatives from academia and the private sector, as well as government and regulators. This session aims to give you some all-round pointers on the dos and donts towards choosing, applying, attending an interview and negotiating your future position as a young biomedical engineer.

FAQ's | College of Engineering & Applied Science

Science.gov Websites

zipped (compressed) format. This will help when the file is very large or created by one of the high end Milwaukee Engineer People Faculty and Staff Biomedical Engineering Civil & Environmental Engineering Computer Labs Technical Questions The labs are generally open 24/7, how will I know when a lab/system

Molecular Imaging in Synthetic Biology, and Synthetic Biology in Molecular Imaging.

PubMed

Gilad, Assaf A; Shapiro, Mikhail G

2017-06-01

Biomedical synthetic biology is an emerging field in which cells are engineered at the genetic level to carry out novel functions with relevance to biomedical and industrial applications. This approach promises new treatments, imaging tools, and diagnostics for diseases ranging from gastrointestinal inflammatory syndromes to cancer, diabetes, and neurodegeneration. As these cellular technologies undergo pre-clinical and clinical development, it is becoming essential to monitor their location and function in vivo, necessitating appropriate molecular imaging strategies, and therefore, we have created an interest group within the World Molecular Imaging Society focusing on synthetic biology and reporter gene technologies. Here, we highlight recent advances in biomedical synthetic biology, including bacterial therapy, immunotherapy, and regenerative medicine. We then discuss emerging molecular imaging approaches to facilitate in vivo applications, focusing on reporter genes for noninvasive modalities such as magnetic resonance, ultrasound, photoacoustic imaging, bioluminescence, and radionuclear imaging. Because reporter genes can be incorporated directly into engineered genetic circuits, they are particularly well suited to imaging synthetic biological constructs, and developing them provides opportunities for creative molecular and genetic engineering.

A knowledge representation view on biomedical structure and function.

PubMed Central

Schulz, Stefan; Hahn, Udo

2002-01-01

In biomedical ontologies, structural and functional considerations are of outstanding importance, and concepts which belong to these two categories are highly interdependent. At the representational level both axes must be clearly kept separate in order to support disciplined ontology engineering. Furthermore, the biaxial organization of physical structure (both by a taxonomic and partonomic order) entails intricate patterns of inference. We here propose a layered encoding of taxonomic, partonomic and functional aspects of biomedical concepts using description logics. PMID:12463912

Evaluating the effects of an integrated medical ethics curriculum on first-year students.

PubMed

Chin, Jacqueline J L; Voo, Teck Chuan; Karim, Syahirah Abdul; Chan, Yiong Huak; Campbell, Alastair V

2011-01-01

An integrated biomedical ethics track was implemented as part of the new medical undergraduate curriculum at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine in academic year (AY) 2008/2009. This study analyses the effects of the new curriculum on fi rst-year students' knowledge, confidence and opinions in relation to the subject. In a cohort-based quasi-experimental study, we administered a pre-course and post-course questionnaire to a group of fi rst-year students in AY2008/2009 who underwent the new biomedical ethics curriculum. The same questionnaire was carried out with the fi rst-year cohort of AY2007/2008, who had received only ad hoc teaching in biomedical ethics. The questionnaire focused on the students' opinions on selected taught topics in biomedical ethics and law, and formal ethics education; their confidence in relation to specific clinical ethical competencies; and their knowledge of selected taught topics in the fi rst-year syllabus. The experimental cohort acquired more knowledge and confidence. They rated more positively formal ethics teaching and assessment as a requirement of medical education. Attitudes were found to have been 'professionalised' within the experimental group, with significantly greater receptiveness towards ethical codes of the profession and the regulatory role of the Singapore Medical Council. They were found to be more conservative with respect to legislative changes in healthcare. The pioneer biomedical ethics curriculum had significant effects on the ethical development of fi rst-year medical students. Longitudinal research through further phases of the integrated curriculum is needed to identify learning issues that affect the consolidation of knowledge, confidence and attitudes in medical ethics, law and professionalism.

Grounding, Bonding, Shielding, and Lightning Bibliography 1972 to 1979

DTIC Science & Technology

1981-02-01

Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. BME -22, no. 1, 3anuary 1975, pp. 62-65. Several basic facts about the effects of steel conduits in a.c. power...34 Institution of Engineers, Australia, Electrical Engineering Transactions, (Australia), vol. EE- 14, no. 2, 1978, pp. 73-77. Statistics on Australian

Underrepresented Minority High School and College Students Report STEM-Pipeline Sustaining Gains After Participating in the Loma Linda University Summer Health Disparities Research Program

PubMed Central

Salto, Lorena M.; Riggs, Matt L.; Delgado De Leon, Daisy; Casiano, Carlos A.; De Leon, Marino

2014-01-01

An urgent need exists for graduate and professional schools to establish evidence-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) pipeline programs to increase the diversity of the biomedical workforce. An untapped yet promising pool of willing participants are capable high school students that have a strong STEM interest but may lack the skills and the guided mentoring needed to succeed in competitive STEM fields. This study evaluates and compares the impact of the Loma Linda University (LLU) Summer Health Disparities Research Program on high school (HS) and undergraduate (UG) student participants. The primary focus of our summer research experience (SRE) is to enhance the research self-efficacy of the participants by actively involving them in a research project and by providing the students with personalized mentoring and targeted career development activities, including education on health disparities. The results of our study show that our SRE influenced terminal degree intent and increased participant willingness to incorporate research into future careers for both the HS and the UG groups. The quantitative data shows that both the HS and the UG participants reported large, statistically significant gains in self-assessed research skills and research self-efficacy. Both participant groups identified the hands-on research and the mentor experience as the most valuable aspects of our SRE and reported increased science skills, increased confidence in science ability and increased motivation and affirmation to pursue a science career. The follow-up data indicates that 67% of the HS participants and 90% of the UG participants graduated from college with a STEM degree; for those who enrolled in graduate education, 61% and 43% enrolled in LLU, respectively. We conclude that structured SREs can be highly effective STEM strengthening interventions for both UG and HS students and may be a way to measurably increase institutional and biomedical workforce diversity. PMID:25250695

Underrepresented minority high school and college students report STEM-pipeline sustaining gains after participating in the Loma Linda University Summer Health Disparities Research Program.

PubMed

Salto, Lorena M; Riggs, Matt L; Delgado De Leon, Daisy; Casiano, Carlos A; De Leon, Marino

2014-01-01

An urgent need exists for graduate and professional schools to establish evidence-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) pipeline programs to increase the diversity of the biomedical workforce. An untapped yet promising pool of willing participants are capable high school students that have a strong STEM interest but may lack the skills and the guided mentoring needed to succeed in competitive STEM fields. This study evaluates and compares the impact of the Loma Linda University (LLU) Summer Health Disparities Research Program on high school (HS) and undergraduate (UG) student participants. The primary focus of our summer research experience (SRE) is to enhance the research self-efficacy of the participants by actively involving them in a research project and by providing the students with personalized mentoring and targeted career development activities, including education on health disparities. The results of our study show that our SRE influenced terminal degree intent and increased participant willingness to incorporate research into future careers for both the HS and the UG groups. The quantitative data shows that both the HS and the UG participants reported large, statistically significant gains in self-assessed research skills and research self-efficacy. Both participant groups identified the hands-on research and the mentor experience as the most valuable aspects of our SRE and reported increased science skills, increased confidence in science ability and increased motivation and affirmation to pursue a science career. The follow-up data indicates that 67% of the HS participants and 90% of the UG participants graduated from college with a STEM degree; for those who enrolled in graduate education, 61% and 43% enrolled in LLU, respectively. We conclude that structured SREs can be highly effective STEM strengthening interventions for both UG and HS students and may be a way to measurably increase institutional and biomedical workforce diversity.

Sagace: A web-based search engine for biomedical databases in Japan

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background In the big data era, biomedical research continues to generate a large amount of data, and the generated information is often stored in a database and made publicly available. Although combining data from multiple databases should accelerate further studies, the current number of life sciences databases is too large to grasp features and contents of each database. Findings We have developed Sagace, a web-based search engine that enables users to retrieve information from a range of biological databases (such as gene expression profiles and proteomics data) and biological resource banks (such as mouse models of disease and cell lines). With Sagace, users can search more than 300 databases in Japan. Sagace offers features tailored to biomedical research, including manually tuned ranking, a faceted navigation to refine search results, and rich snippets constructed with retrieved metadata for each database entry. Conclusions Sagace will be valuable for experts who are involved in biomedical research and drug development in both academia and industry. Sagace is freely available at http://sagace.nibio.go.jp/en/. PMID:23110816

Genetically engineered livestock for biomedical models.

PubMed

Rogers, Christopher S

2016-06-01

To commemorate Transgenic Animal Research Conference X, this review summarizes the recent progress in developing genetically engineered livestock species as biomedical models. The first of these conferences was held in 1997, which turned out to be a watershed year for the field, with two significant events occurring. One was the publication of the first transgenic livestock animal disease model, a pig with retinitis pigmentosa. Before that, the use of livestock species in biomedical research had been limited to wild-type animals or disease models that had been induced or were naturally occurring. The second event was the report of Dolly, a cloned sheep produced by somatic cell nuclear transfer. Cloning subsequently became an essential part of the process for most of the models developed in the last 18 years and is stilled used prominently today. This review is intended to highlight the biomedical modeling achievements that followed those key events, many of which were first reported at one of the previous nine Transgenic Animal Research Conferences. Also discussed are the practical challenges of utilizing livestock disease models now that the technical hurdles of model development have been largely overcome.

Perspective: fostering biomedical literacy among America's youth: how medical simulation reshapes the strategy.

PubMed

Gordon, James A; Oriol, Nancy E

2008-05-01

Medicine is a uniquely powerful platform for teaching science and ethics, technology and humanity, life and death. Yet, society has historically limited medical education to a select few, and only after an advanced course of premedical studies. In an era when biomedical literacy is increasingly viewed as a national imperative, the authors hypothesized that advanced instruction in medicine could be intellectually transformative among a broad range of young people. Using high-fidelity patient simulators, a group of college and high school students was immersed in a weeklong course designed to replicate the practice of modern medicine. On the basis of the students' reported experiences, the authors feel that patient simulation can foster forceful interest in the life sciences at an early age. Such efforts could catalyze a significant expansion of interest in biomedical science among students nationwide.

Diagnostic reasoning and underlying knowledge of students with preclinical patient contacts in PBL.

PubMed

Diemers, Agnes D; van de Wiel, Margje W J; Scherpbier, Albert J J A; Baarveld, Frank; Dolmans, Diana H J M

2015-12-01

Medical experts have access to elaborate and integrated knowledge networks consisting of biomedical and clinical knowledge. These coherent knowledge networks enable them to generate more accurate diagnoses in a shorter time. However, students' knowledge networks are less organised and students have difficulties linking theory and practice and transferring acquired knowledge. Therefore we wanted to explore the development and transfer of knowledge of third-year preclinical students on a problem-based learning (PBL) course with real patient contacts. Before and after a 10-week PBL course with real patients, third-year medical students were asked to think out loud while diagnosing four types of paper patient problems (two course cases and two transfer cases), and explain the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of the patient features. Diagnostic accuracy and time needed to think through the cases were measured. The think-aloud protocols were transcribed verbatim and different types of knowledge were coded and quantitatively analysed. The written pathophysiological explanations were translated into networks of concepts. Both the concepts and the links between concepts in students' networks were compared to model networks. Over the course diagnostic accuracy increased, case-processing time decreased, and students used less biomedical and clinical knowledge during diagnostic reasoning. The quality of the pathophysiological explanations increased: the students used more concepts, especially more model concepts, and they used fewer wrong concepts and links. The findings differed across course and transfer cases. The effects were generally less strong for transfer cases. Students' improved diagnostic accuracy and the improved quality of their knowledge networks suggest that integration of biomedical and clinical knowledge took place during a 10-week course. The differences between course and transfer cases demonstrate that transfer is complex and time-consuming. We therefore suggest offering students many varied patient contacts with the same underlying pathophysiological mechanism and encouraging students to link biomedical and clinical knowledge. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Comparison of pharmacy students' perceived and actual knowledge using the Pharmacy Curricular Outcomes Assessment.

PubMed

Naughton, Cynthia A; Friesner, Daniel L

2012-05-10

To determine whether a correlation exists between third-year PharmD students' perceived pharmacy knowledge and actual pharmacy knowledge as assessed by the Pharmacy Curricular Outcomes Assessment (PCOA). In 2010 and 2011, the PCOA was administered in a low-stakes environment to third-year pharmacy students at North Dakota State University College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Sciences (COPNAS). A survey instrument was also administered on which students self-assessed their perceived competencies in each of the core areas covered by the PCOA examination. The pharmacy students rated their competencies slightly higher than average. Performance on the PCOA was similar to but slightly higher than national averages. Correlations between each of the 4 content areas (basic biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, social/administrative sciences, and clinical sciences) mirrored those reported nationally by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). Student performance on the basic biomedical sciences portion of the PCOA was significantly correlated with students' perceived competencies in the biomedical sciences. No other correlations between actual and perceived competencies were significant. A lack of correlation exists between what students perceive they know and what they actually know in the areas of pharmaceutical science; social, behavioral, and administrative science; and clinical science. Therefore, additional standardized measures are needed to assess curricular effectiveness and provide comparisons among pharmacy programs.

Visualization of gender, race, citizenship and academic performance in association with career outcomes of 15-year biomedical doctoral alumni at a public research university

PubMed Central

Cano, Annmarie; Kohl, Michael; Muthunayake, Nisansala S.; Vaidyanathan, Prassanna; Wood, Mary E.; Ziyad, Mustafa

2018-01-01

It has long been thought that biomedical doctoral students pursue careers primarily as tenure-track/tenured faculty at research institutions. Recent reports showed, however, that the majority of biomedical doctoral alumni engage in a variety of careers. Wayne State University (WSU) undertook a project to understand the career trajectories of its biomedical doctoral alumni to create programs to better prepare its students for careers in multiple pathways. Data were collected on career outcomes of WSU’s biomedical doctoral alumni who graduated in a 15-year period from 1999–2014. Careers were classified into three tiers by Employment Sector, Career Types and Job Functions and career paths were examined by alumni gender, race, U.S. citizenship status, and association with certain academic characteristics. Several statistically significant differences in career paths among all demographics were found. For example, women were more likely to be in teaching and providing healthcare, men in faculty and research; Black alumni pursued careers in Government at higher rates and Whites in For-Profit careers; Asians and non-U.S. citizens spent more time in training positions than others. There was no association of academic characteristics such as GRE, GPA, and Time-to-Degree completion with careers in the two largest sectors of Academia or For-profit. Since our trainees are engaged in this rich variety of careers essential to advancing biomedical science and research nationally, it is imperative for the graduate training community to embrace all careers as successful, and transform the model for biomedical doctoral training to foster student success across this broad career spectrum. PMID:29771987

Molecular engineering of polymer actuators for biomedical and industrial use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Banister, Mark; Eichorst, Rebecca; Gurr, Amy; Schweitzer, Georgette; Geronov, Yordan; Rao, Pavalli; McGrath, Dominic

2012-04-01

Five key materials engineering components and how each component impacted the working performance of a polymer actuator material are investigated. In our research we investigated the change of actuation performance that occurred with each change we made to the material. We investigated polymer crosslink density, polymer chain length, polymer gelation, type and density of reactive units, as well as the addition of binders to the polymer matrix. All five play a significant role and need to be addressed at the molecular level to optimize a polymer gel for use as a practical actuator material for biomedical and industrial use.

Effective communication and supervision in the biomedical engineering department.

PubMed

Xu, Y; Wald, A; Cappiello, J

1997-01-01

It is important for biomedical engineering supervisors to master the art of effective communication. Supervisors who have effective communication skills can successfully initiate creative programs and generate a harmonious working atmosphere. Using effective communication, they can promote good working conditions, such as high morale, worker initiative and loyalty to the department, which are almost impossible to measure but imperative for a successful department. However, effective communication tends to be neglected by supervisors who are either functional specialists or managerial generalists. This paper presents several cases of what effective communication truly is and discusses some potential factors that may lead to ineffective communication.

A summary of the research program in the broad field of electronics

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1972-01-01

Summary reports of research projects covering solid state materials, semiconductors and devices, quantum electronics, plasmas, applied electromagnetics, electrical engineering systems to include control communication, computer and power systems, biomedical engineering and mathematical biosciences.

Essie: A Concept-based Search Engine for Structured Biomedical Text

PubMed Central

Ide, Nicholas C.; Loane, Russell F.; Demner-Fushman, Dina

2007-01-01

This article describes the algorithms implemented in the Essie search engine that is currently serving several Web sites at the National Library of Medicine. Essie is a phrase-based search engine with term and concept query expansion and probabilistic relevancy ranking. Essie’s design is motivated by an observation that query terms are often conceptually related to terms in a document, without actually occurring in the document text. Essie’s performance was evaluated using data and standard evaluation methods from the 2003 and 2006 Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) Genomics track. Essie was the best-performing search engine in the 2003 TREC Genomics track and achieved results comparable to those of the highest-ranking systems on the 2006 TREC Genomics track task. Essie shows that a judicious combination of exploiting document structure, phrase searching, and concept based query expansion is a useful approach for information retrieval in the biomedical domain. PMID:17329729

Teaching ethical aptitude to graduate student researchers.

PubMed

Weyrich, Laura S; Harvill, Eric T

2013-01-01

Limited time dedicated to each training areas, irrelevant case-studies, and ethics "checklists" have resulted in bare-bones Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training for present biomedical graduate student researchers. Here, we argue that science graduate students be taught classical ethical theory, such as virtue ethics, consequentialist theory, and deontological theory, to provide a basic framework to guide researchers through ethically complex situations and examine the applicability, implications, and societal ramifications of their research. Using a relevant biomedical research example to illustrate this point, we argue that proper ethics training for graduate student researchers not only will enhance current RCR training, but train more creative, responsible scientists.

Surface engineering of graphene-based nanomaterials for biomedical applications.

PubMed

Shi, Sixiang; Chen, Feng; Ehlerding, Emily B; Cai, Weibo

2014-09-17

Graphene-based nanomaterials have attracted tremendous interest over the past decade due to their unique electronic, optical, mechanical, and chemical properties. However, the biomedical applications of these intriguing nanomaterials are still limited due to their suboptimal solubility/biocompatibility, potential toxicity, and difficulties in achieving active tumor targeting, just to name a few. In this Topical Review, we will discuss in detail the important role of surface engineering (i.e., bioconjugation) in improving the in vitro/in vivo stability and enriching the functionality of graphene-based nanomaterials, which can enable single/multimodality imaging (e.g., optical imaging, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging) and therapy (e.g., photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, and drug/gene delivery) of cancer. Current challenges and future research directions are also discussed and we believe that graphene-based nanomaterials are attractive nanoplatforms for a broad array of future biomedical applications.

Surface Engineering of Graphene-Based Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Graphene-based nanomaterials have attracted tremendous interest over the past decade due to their unique electronic, optical, mechanical, and chemical properties. However, the biomedical applications of these intriguing nanomaterials are still limited due to their suboptimal solubility/biocompatibility, potential toxicity, and difficulties in achieving active tumor targeting, just to name a few. In this Topical Review, we will discuss in detail the important role of surface engineering (i.e., bioconjugation) in improving the in vitro/in vivo stability and enriching the functionality of graphene-based nanomaterials, which can enable single/multimodality imaging (e.g., optical imaging, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging) and therapy (e.g., photothermal therapy, photodynamic therapy, and drug/gene delivery) of cancer. Current challenges and future research directions are also discussed and we believe that graphene-based nanomaterials are attractive nanoplatforms for a broad array of future biomedical applications. PMID:25117569

[Distance learning using internet in the field of bioengineering].

PubMed

Ciobanu, O

2003-01-01

The Leonardo da Vinci training programme supports innovative transnational initiatives for promoting the knowledge, aptitudes and skills necessary for successful integration into working life. Biomedical engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field that contributes to understand, define and solve problems in biomedical technology within industrial and health service contexts. Paper presents a Leonardo da Vinci pilot-project called Web-based learning and training in the field of biomedical and design engineering (WEBD). This project has started on 2001. The WEBD project proposes to use advanced learning technologies to provide education in the www. Project uses interactive 3D graphics and virtual reality tools. The WEBD distance training permits users to experience and interact with a life-like model or environment, in safety and at convenient times, while providing a degree of control over the simulation that is usually not possible in the real-life situation.

Defining new aims for BME programs in Latin America: the case of UAM-Iztapalapa.

PubMed

Azpiroz-Leehan, J; Martinez, L F; Urbina, M E G; Cadena, M M; Sacristan, E

2016-08-01

The need for upkeep and management of medical technology has fostered the creation of a large number of under graduate programs in the field of biomedical Engineering. In Latin America alone, there are over 85 programs dedicated to this. This contrasts with programs in other regions where most of the undergraduates continue on to pursue graduate degrees or work as research and development engineers in the biomedical industry. In this work we analyze the situation regarding curricular design in the 48 BME programs in Mexico and compare this to suggestions and classifications of programs according to needs and possibilities. We then focus on a particular institution, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana and due to its characteristics and performance we propose that it should redefine its aims from the undergraduate program on, in order to not only generate research but also to provide a nurturing environment for a budding biomedical industry in Mexico.

Birdcage volume coils and magnetic resonance imaging: a simple experiment for students.

PubMed

Vincent, Dwight E; Wang, Tianhao; Magyar, Thalia A K; Jacob, Peni I; Buist, Richard; Martin, Melanie

2017-01-01

This article explains some simple experiments that can be used in undergraduate or graduate physics or biomedical engineering laboratory classes to learn how birdcage volume radiofrequency (RF) coils and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) work. For a clear picture, and to do any quantitative MRI analysis, acquiring images with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is required. With a given MRI system at a given field strength, the only means to change the SNR using hardware is to change the RF coil used to collect the image. RF coils can be designed in many different ways including birdcage volume RF coil designs. The choice of RF coil to give the best SNR for any MRI study is based on the sample being imaged. The data collected in the simple experiments show that the SNR varies as inverse diameter for the birdcage volume RF coils used in these experiments. The experiments were easily performed by a high school student, an undergraduate student, and a graduate student, in less than 3 h, the time typically allotted for a university laboratory course. The article describes experiments that students in undergraduate or graduate laboratories can perform to observe how birdcage volume RF coils influence MRI measurements. It is designed for students interested in pursuing careers in the imaging field.

Fabrication of Novel Porous Chitosan Matrices as Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-01-01

Tissue Engineering Tao Jianga, Cyril M. Pilaneb, Cato T. Laurencina’b"c’ * a Department of Chemical Engineering , University of Virginia, Charlottesville...Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering 400 Ray C. Hunt Drive, Suite 330 University of Virginia Charlottesville...an alternative therapeutic approach for skeletal regeneration. Tissue engineering has been defined as the application of biological, chemical , and

Imaging Strategies for Tissue Engineering Applications

PubMed Central

Nam, Seung Yun; Ricles, Laura M.; Suggs, Laura J.

2015-01-01

Tissue engineering has evolved with multifaceted research being conducted using advanced technologies, and it is progressing toward clinical applications. As tissue engineering technology significantly advances, it proceeds toward increasing sophistication, including nanoscale strategies for material construction and synergetic methods for combining with cells, growth factors, or other macromolecules. Therefore, to assess advanced tissue-engineered constructs, tissue engineers need versatile imaging methods capable of monitoring not only morphological but also functional and molecular information. However, there is no single imaging modality that is suitable for all tissue-engineered constructs. Each imaging method has its own range of applications and provides information based on the specific properties of the imaging technique. Therefore, according to the requirements of the tissue engineering studies, the most appropriate tool should be selected among a variety of imaging modalities. The goal of this review article is to describe available biomedical imaging methods to assess tissue engineering applications and to provide tissue engineers with criteria and insights for determining the best imaging strategies. Commonly used biomedical imaging modalities, including X-ray and computed tomography, positron emission tomography and single photon emission computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound imaging, optical imaging, and emerging techniques and multimodal imaging, will be discussed, focusing on the latest trends of their applications in recent tissue engineering studies. PMID:25012069

A proposal to establish master's in biomedical sciences degree programs in medical school environments.

PubMed

Ingoglia, Nicholas A

2009-04-01

Most graduate schools associated with medical schools offer programs leading to the PhD degree but pay little attention to master's programs. This is unfortunate because many university graduates who are interested specifically in biomedical rather than pure science fields need further education before making decisions on whether to enter clinical, research, education, or business careers. Training for these students is done best in a medical school, rather than a graduate university, environment and by faculty who are engaged in research in the biomedical sciences. Students benefit from these programs by exploring career options they might not have previously considered while learning about disease-related subjects at the graduate level. Graduate faculty can also benefit by being compensated for their teaching with a portion of the tuition revenue, funds that can help run their laboratories and support other academic expenses. Faculty also may attract talented students to their labs and to their PhD programs by exposing them to a passion for research. The graduate school also benefits by collecting masters tuition revenue that can be used toward supporting PhD stipends. Six-year outcome data from the program at Newark show that, on completion of the program, most students enter educational, clinical, or research careers and that the graduate school has established a new and significant stream of revenue. Thus, the establishment of a master's program in biomedical sciences that helps students match their academic abilities with their career goals significantly benefits students as well as the graduate school and its faculty.

Predictors of Student Productivity in Biomedical Graduate School Applications.

PubMed

Hall, Joshua D; O'Connell, Anna B; Cook, Jeanette G

2017-01-01

Many US biomedical PhD programs receive more applications for admissions than they can accept each year, necessitating a selective admissions process. Typical selection criteria include standardized test scores, undergraduate grade point average, letters of recommendation, a resume and/or personal statement highlighting relevant research or professional experience, and feedback from interviews with training faculty. Admissions decisions are often founded on assumptions that these application components correlate with research success in graduate school, but these assumptions have not been rigorously tested. We sought to determine if any application components were predictive of student productivity measured by first-author student publications and time to degree completion. We collected productivity metrics for graduate students who entered the umbrella first-year biomedical PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008-2010 and analyzed components of their admissions applications. We found no correlations of test scores, grades, amount of previous research experience, or faculty interview ratings with high or low productivity among those applicants who were admitted and chose to matriculate at UNC. In contrast, ratings from recommendation letter writers were significantly stronger for students who published multiple first-author papers in graduate school than for those who published no first-author papers during the same timeframe. We conclude that the most commonly used standardized test (the general GRE) is a particularly ineffective predictive tool, but that qualitative assessments by previous mentors are more likely to identify students who will succeed in biomedical graduate research. Based on these results, we conclude that admissions committees should avoid over-reliance on any single component of the application and de-emphasize metrics that are minimally predictive of student productivity. We recommend continual tracking of desired training outcomes combined with retrospective analysis of admissions practices to guide both application requirements and holistic application review.

Educational Intervention in a Medically Underserved Area.

PubMed

Atance, Joel; Mickalis, Morgan; Kincade, Brianna

2018-04-01

Medical students from rural and medically underserved areas (MUAs) are more likely than their peers to practice medicine in rural areas and MUAs. However, students from MUAs are also more likely to face socioeconomic barriers to a career in medicine. To determine whether a week-long summer enrichment experience (SEE) at Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine-Carolinas could successfully teach high school students from MUAs basic biomedical concepts and foster an interest in medicine and the health sciences. The SEE program is open to high school students in the Spartanburg, South Carolina, area. The program includes interactive lectures, laboratories, demonstrations on gross anatomy prosections, demonstrations on medical simulation models, tours of emergency vehicles, an introduction to osteopathic manipulative medicine, and student-led research projects. Participants were asked to complete a 15-question quiz that assessed their knowledge of basic biomedical concepts and a 10-question survey that assessed their attitudes toward careers in medicine and health sciences. Both the quiz and the survey were completed on both the first and final days of the program. The data were analyzed using paired t tests. Participant knowledge of basic biomedical concepts, as determined by the quiz scores, increased after completion of the program (9.1 average correct answers vs 12.6 average correct answers) (P<.001). Participant attitude toward medicine and the health sciences improved in 9 of the 10 items surveyed after completion of the program (P<.05). Participant knowledge of basic biomedical concepts and their knowledge of and interest in careers in the health sciences improved after completing the SEE program. These findings suggest that educational interventions for high school students could help to develop primary care physicians for rural areas and MUAs and that there is a role for osteopathic medical schools to nurture these students as early as possible.

HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT OF ENGINEERED-MANUFACTURED NANOMATERIALS: RESEARCH CHALLENGES AND PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

EPA Science Inventory

Nanotechnology continues to produce a diversity of engineered nanomaterials (NMs), displaying novel physicochemical properties with applications in commercial, consumer, electronic, biomedical, energy, and environmental sectors. Nanotechnology has been referred to as the next in...

26 CFR 1.501(e)-1 - Cooperative hospital service organizations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... illustrated by the following example. Example. An organization performs industrial engineering services on a...-hospitals), warehousing, billing and collection, food, clinical (including radiology), industrial engineering (including the installation, maintenance and repair of biomedical and similar equipment...

26 CFR 1.501(e)-1 - Cooperative hospital service organizations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... illustrated by the following example. Example. An organization performs industrial engineering services on a...-hospitals), warehousing, billing and collection, food, clinical (including radiology), industrial engineering (including the installation, maintenance and repair of biomedical and similar equipment...

26 CFR 1.501(e)-1 - Cooperative hospital service organizations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... illustrated by the following example. Example. An organization performs industrial engineering services on a...-hospitals), warehousing, billing and collection, food, clinical (including radiology), industrial engineering (including the installation, maintenance and repair of biomedical and similar equipment...

26 CFR 1.501(e)-1 - Cooperative hospital service organizations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... illustrated by the following example. Example. An organization performs industrial engineering services on a...-hospitals), warehousing, billing and collection, food, clinical (including radiology), industrial engineering (including the installation, maintenance and repair of biomedical and similar equipment...

26 CFR 1.501(e)-1 - Cooperative hospital service organizations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... illustrated by the following example. Example. An organization performs industrial engineering services on a...-hospitals), warehousing, billing and collection, food, clinical (including radiology), industrial engineering (including the installation, maintenance and repair of biomedical and similar equipment...

Reaching Consensus on Essential Biomedical Science Learning Objectives in a Dental Curriculum.

PubMed

Best, Leandra; Walton, Joanne N; Walker, Judith; von Bergmann, HsingChi

2016-04-01

This article describes how the University of British Columbia Faculty of Dentistry reached consensus on essential basic biomedical science objectives for DMD students and applied the information to the renewal of its DMD curriculum. The Delphi Method was used to build consensus among dental faculty members and students regarding the relevance of over 1,500 existing biomedical science objectives. Volunteer panels of at least three faculty members (a basic scientist, a general dentist, and a dental specialist) and a fourth-year dental student were formed for each of 13 biomedical courses in the first two years of the program. Panel members worked independently and anonymously, rating each course objective as "need to know," "nice to know," "irrelevant," or "don't know." Panel members were advised after each round which objectives had not yet achieved a 75% consensus and were asked to reconsider their ratings. After a maximum of three rounds to reach consensus, a second group of faculty experts reviewed and refined the results to establish the biomedical science objectives for the renewed curriculum. There was consensus on 46% of the learning objectives after round one, 80% after round two, and 95% after round three. The second expert group addressed any remaining objectives as part of its review process. Only 47% of previous biomedical science course objectives were judged to be essential or "need to know" for the general dentist. The consensus reached by participants in the Delphi Method panels and a second group of faculty experts led to a streamlined, better integrated DMD curriculum to prepare graduates for future practice.

Targeted drug discovery and development, from molecular signaling to the global market: an educational program at New York University, 5-year metrics

PubMed Central

Lee, Gloria; Plaksin, Joseph; Ramasamy, Ravichandran; Gold-von Simson, Gabrielle

2018-01-01

Drug discovery and development (DDD) is a collaborative, dynamic process of great interest to researchers, but an area where there is a lack of formal training. The Drug Development Educational Program (DDEP) at New York University was created in 2012 to stimulate an improved, multidisciplinary DDD workforce by educating early stage scientists as well as a variety of other like-minded students. The first course of the program emphasizes post-compounding aspects of DDD; the second course focuses on molecular signaling pathways. In five years, 196 students (candidates for PhD, MD, Master’s degree, and post-doctoral MD/PhD) from different schools (Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Dentistry, Engineering, Business, and Education) completed the course(s). Pre/post surveys demonstrate knowledge gain across all course topics. 26 students were granted career development awards (73% women, 23% underrepresented minorities). Some graduates of their respective degree-granting/post-doctoral programs embarked on DDD related careers. This program serves as a framework for other academic institutions to develop compatible programs designed to train a more informed DDD workforce. PMID:29657854

[Advanced online search techniques and dedicated search engines for physicians].

PubMed

Nahum, Yoav

2008-02-01

In recent years search engines have become an essential tool in the work of physicians. This article will review advanced search techniques from the world of information specialists, as well as some advanced search engine operators that may help physicians improve their online search capabilities, and maximize the yield of their searches. This article also reviews popular dedicated scientific and biomedical literature search engines.

Teaching Research Integrity and Bioethics to Science Undergraduates

PubMed Central

2005-01-01

Undergraduate students in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Alabama, Mobile, are required to take a course entitled “Issues in Biomedical Sciences,” designed to increase students' awareness about bioethical questions and issues concerning research integrity. This paper describes the main features of this course and summarizes the results of a survey designed to evaluate the students' perceptions about the course. A summary of this study was presented at the 2002 Conference on Research Integrity in Potomac, MD, sponsored by the Office of Research Integrity of the National Institutes of Health. PMID:16341260

Mentoring Strategies and Outcomes of Two Federally Funded Cancer Research Training Programs for Underrepresented Students in the Biomedical Sciences.

PubMed

Ford, Marvella E; Abraham, Latecia M; Harrison, Anita L; Jefferson, Melanie S; Hazelton, Tonya R; Varner, Heidi; Cannady, Kimberly; Frichtel, Carla S; Bagasra, Omar; Davis, Leroy; Rivers, David E; Slaughter, Sabra C; Salley, Judith D

2016-06-01

The US is experiencing a severe shortage of underrepresented biomedical researchers. The purpose of this paper is to present two case examples of cancer research mentoring programs for underrepresented biomedical sciences students. The first case example is a National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) P20 grant titled "South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CaDRe)" Training Program, contributing to an increase in the number of underrepresented students applying to graduate school by employing a triple-level mentoring strategy. Since 2011, three undergraduate and four graduate students have participated in the P20 SC CaDRe program. One graduate student published a peer-reviewed scientific paper. Two graduate students (50 %) have completed their master's degrees, and the other two graduate students will receive their degrees in spring 2015. Two undergraduate students (67 %) are enrolled in graduate or professional school (grad./prof. school), and the other graduate student is completing her final year of college. The second case example is a prostate cancer-focused Department of Defense grant titled "The SC Collaborative Undergraduate HBCU Student Summer Training Program," providing 24 students training since 2009. Additionally, 47 students made scientific presentations, and two students have published peer-reviewed scientific papers. All 24 students took a GRE test preparation course; 15 (63 %) have applied to graduate school, and 11 of them (73 %) are enrolled in grad./prof. school. Thirteen remaining students (54 %) are applying to grad./prof. school. Leveraged funding provided research-training opportunities to an additional 201 National Conference on Health Disparities Student Forum participants and to 937 Ernest E. Just Research Symposium participants at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Novel 3D Tissue Engineered Bone Model, Biomimetic Nanomaterials, and Cold Atmospheric Plasma Technique for Biomedical Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Mian

This thesis research is consist of four chapters, including biomimetic three-dimensional tissue engineered nanostructured bone model for breast cancer bone metastasis study (Chapter one), cold atmospheric plasma for selectively ablating metastatic breast cancer (Chapter two), design of biomimetic and bioactive cold plasma modified nanostructured scaffolds for enhanced osteogenic differentiation of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (Chapter three), and enhanced osteoblast and mesenchymal stem cell functions on titanium with hydrothermally treated nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite/magnetically treated carbon nanotubes for orthopedic applications (Chapter four). All the thesis research is focused on nanomaterials and the use of cold plasma technique for various biomedical applications.

Updating the biomedical engineering curriculum: Inclusion of Health Technology Assessment subjects.

PubMed

Martinez Licona, Fabiola; Urbina, Edmundo Gerardo; Azpiroz-Leehan, Joaquin

2010-01-01

This paper describes the work being carried out at Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM) in Mexico City with regard to the continuous evaluation and updating of the Biomedical Engineering (BME) curriculum. In particular the courses regarded as part of the BME basic branch are reduced and new sets of elective subjects are proposed in order to bring closer the research work at UAM with the subjects in the BME curriculum. Special emphasis is placed on subjects dealing with Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Health economics, as this branch of the BME discipline is quite promising in Mexico, but there are very few professionals in the field with adequate qualifications.

Selective laser sintering in biomedical engineering.

PubMed

Mazzoli, Alida

2013-03-01

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a solid freeform fabrication technique, developed by Carl Deckard for his master's thesis at the University of Texas, patented in 1989. SLS manufacturing is a technique that produces physical models through a selective solidification of a variety of fine powders. SLS technology is getting a great amount of attention in the clinical field. In this paper the characteristics features of SLS and the materials that have been developed for are reviewed together with a discussion on the principles of the above-mentioned manufacturing technique. The applications of SLS in tissue engineering, and at-large in the biomedical field, are reviewed and discussed.

The application of biomedical engineering techniques to the diagnosis and management of tropical diseases: a review.

PubMed

Ibrahim, Fatimah; Thio, Tzer Hwai Gilbert; Faisal, Tarig; Neuman, Michael

2015-03-23

This paper reviews a number of biomedical engineering approaches to help aid in the detection and treatment of tropical diseases such as dengue, malaria, cholera, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, ebola, leprosy, leishmaniasis, and American trypanosomiasis (Chagas). Many different forms of non-invasive approaches such as ultrasound, echocardiography and electrocardiography, bioelectrical impedance, optical detection, simplified and rapid serological tests such as lab-on-chip and micro-/nano-fluidic platforms and medical support systems such as artificial intelligence clinical support systems are discussed. The paper also reviewed the novel clinical diagnosis and management systems using artificial intelligence and bioelectrical impedance techniques for dengue clinical applications.

Supervised Learning Based Hypothesis Generation from Biomedical Literature.

PubMed

Sang, Shengtian; Yang, Zhihao; Li, Zongyao; Lin, Hongfei

2015-01-01

Nowadays, the amount of biomedical literatures is growing at an explosive speed, and there is much useful knowledge undiscovered in this literature. Researchers can form biomedical hypotheses through mining these works. In this paper, we propose a supervised learning based approach to generate hypotheses from biomedical literature. This approach splits the traditional processing of hypothesis generation with classic ABC model into AB model and BC model which are constructed with supervised learning method. Compared with the concept cooccurrence and grammar engineering-based approaches like SemRep, machine learning based models usually can achieve better performance in information extraction (IE) from texts. Then through combining the two models, the approach reconstructs the ABC model and generates biomedical hypotheses from literature. The experimental results on the three classic Swanson hypotheses show that our approach outperforms SemRep system.

Integrated interdisciplinary training in the radiological sciences.

PubMed

Brenner, D J; Vazquez, M; Buonanno, M; Amundson, S A; Bigelow, A W; Garty, G; Harken, A D; Hei, T K; Marino, S A; Ponnaiya, B; Randers-Pehrson, G; Xu, Y

2014-02-01

The radiation sciences are increasingly interdisciplinary, both from the research and the clinical perspectives. Beyond clinical and research issues, there are very real issues of communication between scientists from different disciplines. It follows that there is an increasing need for interdisciplinary training courses in the radiological sciences. Training courses are common in biomedical academic and clinical environments, but are typically targeted to scientists in specific technical fields. In the era of multidisciplinary biomedical science, there is a need for highly integrated multidisciplinary training courses that are designed for, and are useful to, scientists who are from a mix of very different academic fields and backgrounds. We briefly describe our experiences running such an integrated training course for researchers in the field of biomedical radiation microbeams, and draw some conclusions about how such interdisciplinary training courses can best function. These conclusions should be applicable to many other areas of the radiological sciences. In summary, we found that it is highly beneficial to keep the scientists from the different disciplines together. In practice, this means not segregating the training course into sections specifically for biologists and sections specifically for physicists and engineers, but rather keeping the students together to attend the same lectures and hands-on studies throughout the course. This structure added value to the learning experience not only in terms of the cross fertilization of information and ideas between scientists from the different disciplines, but also in terms of reinforcing some basic concepts for scientists in their own discipline.

The development of the experimental setup for measuring the cell membrane electrical potential by Sucrose-Gap Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yuzhakov, AD; Nosarev, AV; Aleinik, AN

2017-11-01

This article describes the development of the experimental setup for measuring the cell membrane electrical potential by Double -Sucrose-Gap Technique. The double-gap isolation method allows the simultaneous measurement of electrical activity and tension output from contracting segments of muscle fibers. This technique has been widely used as a convenient tool for recording of the membrane activities from myelinated or unmyelinated nerves and muscle preparations. This device can be an effective way to provide undergraduate biomedical engineering students with invaluable experiences in neurophysiology. The installation design and its main characteristics are described. The advantages of the described device are the simplicity of the experiment, relatively low cost, the possibility of long-term experiment.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Khosrow Behbehani

The goal of this project was to create state-of-the-art optical medical imaging laboratories for the Biomedical Engineering faculty and student researchers of the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) on the campus of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW). This has been successfully achieved. These laboratories provide an unprecedented opportunity for the bioengineers (from UTA) to bring about new breakthroughs in medical imaging using optics. Specifically, three major laboratories have been successfully established and state-of-the-art scientific instruments have been placed in the labs. As a result of this grant, numerous journal and conference publications have been generated, patentsmore » for new inventions have been filed and received, and many additional grants for the continuation of the research has been received.« less

A pH Sensor Based on a Stainless Steel Electrode Electrodeposited with Iridium Oxide

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martinez, C. C. M.; Madrid, R. E.; Felice, C. J.

2009-01-01

A simple procedure to make an iridium oxide (IrO[subscript 2]) electrodeposited pH sensor, that can be used in a chemical, biomedical, or materials laboratory, is presented here. Some exercises, based on this sensor, that can be used to teach important concepts in the field of biomedical, biochemical, tissue, or materials engineering, are also…

Functional supramolecular polymers for biomedical applications.

PubMed

Dong, Ruijiao; Zhou, Yongfeng; Huang, Xiaohua; Zhu, Xinyuan; Lu, Yunfeng; Shen, Jian

2015-01-21

As a novel class of dynamic and non-covalent polymers, supramolecular polymers not only display specific structural and physicochemical properties, but also have the ability to undergo reversible changes of structure, shape, and function in response to diverse external stimuli, making them promising candidates for widespread applications ranging from academic research to industrial fields. By an elegant combination of dynamic/reversible structures with exceptional functions, functional supramolecular polymers are attracting increasing attention in various fields. In particular, functional supramolecular polymers offer several unique advantages, including inherent degradable polymer backbones, smart responsiveness to various biological stimuli, and the ease for the incorporation of multiple biofunctionalities (e.g., targeting and bioactivity), thereby showing great potential for a wide range of applications in the biomedical field. In this Review, the trends and representative achievements in the design and synthesis of supramolecular polymers with specific functions are summarized, as well as their wide-ranging biomedical applications such as drug delivery, gene transfection, protein delivery, bio-imaging and diagnosis, tissue engineering, and biomimetic chemistry. These achievements further inspire persistent efforts in an emerging interdisciplin-ary research area of supramolecular chemistry, polymer science, material science, biomedical engineering, and nanotechnology. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Careers "Fact Sheets" for clinical engineering & biomedical technology.

PubMed

Pacela, A F

1991-01-01

Three Careers "Fact Sheets" include information on CE and BMET job titles, job descriptions, and certification. These materials are intended to aid in furthering professional recognition for Clinical Engineers and BMETs, and may be useful in communicating with Administration or Human Resources departments.

A Novel Multiple Choice Question Generation Strategy: Alternative Uses for Controlled Vocabulary Thesauri in Biomedical-Sciences Education.

PubMed

Lopetegui, Marcelo A; Lara, Barbara A; Yen, Po-Yin; Çatalyürek, Ümit V; Payne, Philip R O

2015-01-01

Multiple choice questions play an important role in training and evaluating biomedical science students. However, the resource intensive nature of question generation limits their open availability, reducing their contribution to evaluation purposes mainly. Although applied-knowledge questions require a complex formulation process, the creation of concrete-knowledge questions (i.e., definitions, associations) could be assisted by the use of informatics methods. We envisioned a novel and simple algorithm that exploits validated knowledge repositories and generates concrete-knowledge questions by leveraging concepts' relationships. In this manuscript we present the development and validation of a prototype which successfully produced meaningful concrete-knowledge questions, opening new applications for existing knowledge repositories, potentially benefiting students of all biomedical sciences disciplines.

Homeostatis and Complexity as Integrating Tools in Gerontological Education.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richardson, Daniel; McCulloch, B. Jan; Rowles, Graham D.

2001-01-01

A gerontology doctoral program used the concepts of homeostasis and complexity to present biomedical and psychosocial issues. Data from 14 students showed that homeostasis was more useful for biomedical than psychosocial issues. Complexity helped in understanding interactions between the two. (SK)

Recent Advances in Laser-Ablative Synthesis of Bare Au and Si Nanoparticles and Assessment of Their Prospects for Tissue Engineering Applications.

PubMed

Al-Kattan, Ahmed; Nirwan, Viraj P; Popov, Anton; Ryabchikov, Yury V; Tselikov, Gleb; Sentis, Marc; Fahmi, Amir; Kabashin, Andrei V

2018-05-24

Driven by surface cleanness and unique physical, optical and chemical properties, bare (ligand-free) laser-synthesized nanoparticles (NPs) are now in the focus of interest as promising materials for the development of advanced biomedical platforms related to biosensing, bioimaging and therapeutic drug delivery. We recently achieved significant progress in the synthesis of bare gold (Au) and silicon (Si) NPs and their testing in biomedical tasks, including cancer imaging and therapy, biofuel cells, etc. We also showed that these nanomaterials can be excellent candidates for tissue engineering applications. This review is aimed at the description of our recent progress in laser synthesis of bare Si and Au NPs and their testing as functional modules (additives) in innovative scaffold platforms intended for tissue engineering tasks.

The librarian's role in an enrichment program for high school students interested in the health professions.

PubMed

Rossini, Beverly; Burnham, Judy; Wright, Andrea

2013-01-01

Librarians from the University of South Alabama Biomedical Library partnered to participate in a program that targets minority students interested in health care with instruction in information literacy. Librarians participate in the summer enrichment programs designed to encourage minority students to enter health care professions by enhancing their preparation. The curriculum developed by the Biomedical Library librarians is focused on developing information searching skills. Students indicated that the library segment helped them in their library research efforts and helped them make more effective use of available resources. Librarians involved report a sense of self-satisfaction as the program allows them to contribute to promoting greater diversity in health care professions. Participating in the summer enrichment program has been beneficial to the students and librarians.

Carbon Nanotubes in Biomedical Applications: Factors, Mechanisms, and Remedies of Toxicity.

PubMed

Alshehri, Reem; Ilyas, Asad Muhammad; Hasan, Anwarul; Arnaout, Adnan; Ahmed, Farid; Memic, Adnan

2016-09-22

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) represent one of the most studied allotropes of carbon. The unique physicochemical properties of CNTs make them among prime candidates for numerous applications in biomedical fields including drug delivery, gene therapy, biosensors, and tissue engineering applications. However, toxicity of CNTs has been a major concern for their use in biomedical applications. In this review, we present an overview of carbon nanotubes in biomedical applications; we particularly focus on various factors and mechanisms affecting their toxicity. We have discussed various parameters including the size, length, agglomeration, and impurities of CNTs that may cause oxidative stress, which is often the main mechanism of CNTs' toxicity. Other toxic pathways are also examined, and possible ways to overcome these challenges have been discussed.

Digital Technologies Jump Start Telemedicine

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pierce, Alan

2011-01-01

The technologists, research doctors, computer programmers, electrical engineers, and biomedical engineers who design and create new medical diagnostic equipment and medical treatments are now working on medical systems that use the computing power of personal computers and cell phones. For disease diagnosis, they are finding ways to shrink…

Biomedical research, development, and engineering at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Annual report 1 October 1978-30 September 1979

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

The Medical Institutions of The Johns Hopkins University and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have developed a vigorous collaborative program of biomedical research, development, and systems engineering. An important objective of the program is to apply the expertise in engineering, the physical sciences, and systems analysis acquired by APL in defense and space research and development to problems of medical research and health care delivery. This program has grown to include collaboration with many of the clinical and basic science departments of the medical divisions. Active collaborative projects exist in ophthalmology, neurosensory research and instrumentation development, cardiovascular systems,more » patient monitoring, therapeutic and rehabilitation systems, clinical information systems, and clinical engineering. This application of state-of-the-art technology has contributed to advances in many areas of basic medical research and in clinical diagnosis and therapy through improvement of instrumentation, techniques, and basic understanding.« less

Open access to biomedical engineering publications.

PubMed

Flexman, Jennifer A

2008-01-01

Scientific research is disseminated within the community and to the public in part through journals. Most scientific journals, in turn, protect the manuscript through copyright and recover their costs by charging subscription fees to individuals and institutions. This revenue stream is used to support the management of the journal and, in some cases, professional activities of the sponsoring society such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). For example, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) manages seven academic publications representing the various areas of biomedical engineering. New business models have been proposed to distribute journal articles free of charge, either immediately or after a delay, to enable a greater dissemination of knowledge to both the public and the scientific community. However, publication costs must be recovered and likely at a higher cost to the manuscript authors. While there is little doubt that the foundations of scientific publication will change, the specifics and implications of an open source framework must be discussed.

Becoming an effective clinical engineering or biomedical technology manager.

PubMed

Brush, L C

1992-01-01

The BMET or CE Supervisor is a technical manager who is close to the actual work of a biomedical or clinical engineering department. The MPTI is a management training tool that has identified differences between the effective and less-effective technical managers. These behaviors or styles can be considered and applied to the clinical engineering and BMET work environments. Effective BMET or CE Supervisors have a management identity. They are both people-oriented and task-oriented. They are good problem-solvers, and will plan and structure the work tasks and environment. When the situation requires a change in plans, however, they can adapt to the new situation easily. If a decision needs to be made that affects the organization, they will check with higher management or peer managers. Less-effective BMET or CE Supervisors will make important decisions alone, without checking with others. They plan and structure tasks and the work environment, but they are less willing to change when faced with a new situation. They are not people-oriented, and their ability to assess social situations is low. Their need for achievement recognition is often too high. The work environment has an effect on how the competence of a manager is perceived. A "one-desk manager" in a small, one-person biomedical engineering department has more autonomy than a CE Supervisor in a large department. Working for a medical device manufacturing firm often requires a greater management identity. An engineering consultant is often a managing specialist, rather than a traditional manager.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Teaching for adaptive expertise in biomedical engineering ethics.

PubMed

Martin, Taylor; Rayne, Karen; Kemp, Nate J; Hart, Jack; Diller, Kenneth R

2005-04-01

This paper considers an approach to teaching ethics in bioengineering based on the How People Learn (HPL) framework. Curricula based on this framework have been effective in mathematics and science instruction from the kindergarten to the college levels. This framework is well suited to teaching bioengineering ethics because it helps learners develop "adaptive expertise". Adaptive expertise refers to the ability to use knowledge and experience in a domain to learn in unanticipated situations. It differs from routine expertise, which requires using knowledge appropriately to solve routine problems. Adaptive expertise is an important educational objective for bioengineers because the regulations and knowledge base in the discipline are likely to change significantly over the course of their careers. This study compares the performance of undergraduate bioengineering students who learned about ethics for stem cell research using the HPL method of instruction to the performance of students who learned following a standard lecture sequence. Both groups learned the factual material equally well, but the HPL group was more prepared to act adaptively when presented with a novel situation.

Formative assessment in physiology teaching using a wireless classroom communication system.

PubMed

Paschal, Cynthia B

2002-12-01

Systems physiology, studied by biomedical engineers, is an analytical way to approach the homeostatic foundations of basic physiology. In many systems physiology courses, students attend lectures and are given homework and reading assignments to complete outside of class. The effectiveness of this traditional approach was compared with an approach in which a wireless classroom communication system was used to provide instant feedback on in-class learning activities and reading assignment quizzes. Homework was eliminated in this approach. The feedback system used stimulated 100% participation in class and facilitated rapid formative assessment. The results of this study indicate that learning of systems physiology concepts including physiology is at least, as if not more, effective when in-class quizzes and activities with instant feedback are used in place of traditional learning activities including homework. When results of this study are interpreted in light of possible effects of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on student learning in the test group, it appears that the modified instruction may be more effective than the traditional instruction.

Improving science literacy and education through space life sciences.

PubMed

MacLeish, M Y; Moreno, N P; Tharp, B Z; Denton, J J; Jessup, G; Clipper, M C

2001-01-01

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) encourages open involvement by scientists and the public at large in the Institute's activities. Through its Education and Public Outreach Program, the Institute is supporting national efforts to improve Kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) and undergraduate education and to communicate knowledge generated by space life science research to lay audiences. Three academic institution Baylor College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine and Texas A&M University are designing, producing, field-testing, and disseminating a comprehensive array of programs and products to achieve this goal. The objectives of the NSBRI Education and Public Outreach program are to: promote systemic change in elementary and secondary science education; attract undergraduate students--especially those from underrepresented groups--to careers in space life sciences, engineering and technology-based fields; increase scientific literacy; and to develop public and private sector partnerships that enhance and expand NSBRI efforts to reach students and families. c 2001. Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

NASA - Human Space Flight

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Davis, Jeffrey R.

2006-01-01

The presentation covers five main topical areas. The first is a description of how things work in the microgravity environment such as convection and sedimentation. The second part describes the effects of microgravity on human physiology. This is followed by a description of the hazards of space flight including the environment, the space craft, and the mission. An overview of biomedical research in space, both on shuttle and ISS is the fourth section of the presentation. The presentation concludes with a history of space flight from Ham to ISS. At CART students (11th and 12th graders from Fresno Unified and Clovis Unified) are actively involved in their education. They work in teams to research real world problems and discover original solutions. Students work on projects guided by academic instructors and business partners. They will have access to the latest technology and will be expected to expand their learning environment to include the community. They will focus their studies around a career area (Professional Sciences, Advanced Communications, Engineering and Product Development, or Global Issues).

Improving science literacy and education through space life sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

MacLeish, M. Y.; Moreno, N. P.; Tharp, B. Z.; Denton, J. J.; Jessup, G.; Clipper, M. C.

2001-01-01

The National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) encourages open involvement by scientists and the public at large in the Institute's activities. Through its Education and Public Outreach Program, the Institute is supporting national efforts to improve Kindergarten through grade twelve (K-12) and undergraduate education and to communicate knowledge generated by space life science research to lay audiences. Three academic institution Baylor College of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine and Texas A&M University are designing, producing, field-testing, and disseminating a comprehensive array of programs and products to achieve this goal. The objectives of the NSBRI Education and Public Outreach program are to: promote systemic change in elementary and secondary science education; attract undergraduate students--especially those from underrepresented groups--to careers in space life sciences, engineering and technology-based fields; increase scientific literacy; and to develop public and private sector partnerships that enhance and expand NSBRI efforts to reach students and families. c 2001. Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Faculty Costs to Educate a Biomedical Sciences Graduate Student

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smolka, Adam J.; Halushka, Perry V.; Garrett-Mayer, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

Academic medical centers nationwide face numerous fiscal challenges resulting from implementation of restructured healthcare delivery models, contracting state support for higher education, and increased competition for federal and other sources of biomedical research funding. In pursuing greater accountability and transparency in its fiscal…

Space Product Development (SPD)

NASA Image and Video Library

2003-01-12

Experiments to seek solutions for a range of biomedical issues are at the heart of several investigations that will be hosted by the Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates (ITA), Inc. Biomedical Experiments (CIBX-2) payload. CIBX-2 is unique, encompassing more than 20 separate experiments including cancer research, commercial experiments, and student hands-on experiments from 10 schools as part of ITA's ongoing University Among the Stars program. Student Marnix Aklian and ITA's Mark Bem prepare biological samples for flight as part of ITA's hands-on student outreach program on STS-95. Similar activities are a part of the CIBX-2 payload. The experiments are sponsored by NASA's Space Product Development Program (SPD).

Microscale Technologies and Modular Approaches for Tissue Engineering: Moving toward the Fabrication of Complex Functional Structures

PubMed Central

Gauvin, Robert; Khademhosseini, Ali

2011-01-01

Micro- and nanoscale technologies have emerged as powerful tools in the fabrication of engineered tissues and organs. Here we focus on the application of these techniques to improve engineered tissue architecture and function using modular and directed self-assembly and highlight the emergence of this new class of materials for biomedical applications. PMID:21627163

Atomic Layer Deposition in Bio-Nanotechnology: A Brief Overview.

PubMed

Bishal, Arghya K; Butt, Arman; Selvaraj, Sathees K; Joshi, Bela; Patel, Sweetu B; Huang, Su; Yang, Bin; Shukohfar, Tolou; Sukotjo, Cortino; Takoudis, Christos G

2015-01-01

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a technique increasingly used in nanotechnology and ultrathin film deposition; it is ideal for films in the nanometer and Angstrom length scales. ALD can effectively be used to modify the surface chemistry and functionalization of engineering-related and biologically important surfaces. It can also be used to alter the mechanical, electrical, chemical, and other properties of materials that are increasingly used in biomedical engineering and biological sciences. ALD is a relatively new technique for optimizing materials for use in bio-nanotechnology. Here, after a brief review of the more widely used modes of ALD and a few of its applications in biotechnology, selected results that show the potential of ALD in bio-nanotechnology are presented. ALD seems to be a promising means for tuning the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity characteristics of biomedical surfaces, forming conformal ultrathin coatings with desirable properties on biomedical substrates with a high aspect ratio, tuning the antibacterial properties of substrate surfaces of interest, and yielding multifunctional biomaterials for medical implants and other devices.

A BSc level option in biomedical electronics.

PubMed

Gergely, S

1979-01-01

1. The application of electronic instruments in medical diagnosis and therapy is well established. 2. There is a demand for electronic engineers both in industry and in the Health Service at all ranges of educational attainment. 3. It is possible to identify a set of objectives for a first degree course in Biomedical Electronics. An important element of this course should be the provision of practical experience in industry and in hospitals. 4. Such courses are available both in Europe and in the United States. Although the postgraduate course provision was satisfactory in the UK in the early seventies, only one full time undergraduate course was in operation. 5. A sandwich course can be designed in Biomedical Electronics as a major option of an existing BSc course in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Provision can be made for entering and leaving the option. The option can be arranged to follow the guidelines laid down by the IEE for exemption from its educational requirements. 6. The option described started at the Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry in September 1977.

Minority High School Student Research Apprentice Program.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Smith, Elske

The Minority High School Student Research Apprentice Program in Richmond, Virginia, aspires to stimulate among minority high school students an interest in pursuing careers in biomedical research and the health professions. Students are paid hourly wages commensurate with what they could earn at summer jobs. Students work with faculty mentors in…

The Application of Biomedical Engineering Techniques to the Diagnosis and Management of Tropical Diseases: A Review

PubMed Central

Ibrahim, Fatimah; Thio, Tzer Hwai Gilbert; Faisal, Tarig; Neuman, Michael

2015-01-01

This paper reviews a number of biomedical engineering approaches to help aid in the detection and treatment of tropical diseases such as dengue, malaria, cholera, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, ebola, leprosy, leishmaniasis, and American trypanosomiasis (Chagas). Many different forms of non-invasive approaches such as ultrasound, echocardiography and electrocardiography, bioelectrical impedance, optical detection, simplified and rapid serological tests such as lab-on-chip and micro-/nano-fluidic platforms and medical support systems such as artificial intelligence clinical support systems are discussed. The paper also reviewed the novel clinical diagnosis and management systems using artificial intelligence and bioelectrical impedance techniques for dengue clinical applications. PMID:25806872

Engineering a Cure: Treena Livingston Arinzeh

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lum, Lydia

2005-01-01

This article provides an overview of the accomplishments of Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Treena Livingston Arinzeh. It describes her exemplary work on stem cell research; her educational roots; and her work helping develop undergraduate and graduate curricula for the fledgling biomedical…

Student Response (Clicker) Systems: Preferences of Biomedical Physiology Students in Asian Classes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hwang, Isabel; Wong, Kevin; Lam, Shun Leung; Lam, Paul

2015-01-01

Student response systems (commonly called "clickers") are valuable tools for engaging students in classroom interactions. In this study, we investigated the use of two types of response systems (a traditional clicker and a mobile device) by students in human physiology courses. Our results showed high student satisfaction with the use of…

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

Predictors of Student Productivity in Biomedical Graduate School Applications

PubMed Central

O’Connell, Anna B.; Cook, Jeanette G.

2017-01-01

Many US biomedical PhD programs receive more applications for admissions than they can accept each year, necessitating a selective admissions process. Typical selection criteria include standardized test scores, undergraduate grade point average, letters of recommendation, a resume and/or personal statement highlighting relevant research or professional experience, and feedback from interviews with training faculty. Admissions decisions are often founded on assumptions that these application components correlate with research success in graduate school, but these assumptions have not been rigorously tested. We sought to determine if any application components were predictive of student productivity measured by first-author student publications and time to degree completion. We collected productivity metrics for graduate students who entered the umbrella first-year biomedical PhD program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2008–2010 and analyzed components of their admissions applications. We found no correlations of test scores, grades, amount of previous research experience, or faculty interview ratings with high or low productivity among those applicants who were admitted and chose to matriculate at UNC. In contrast, ratings from recommendation letter writers were significantly stronger for students who published multiple first-author papers in graduate school than for those who published no first-author papers during the same timeframe. We conclude that the most commonly used standardized test (the general GRE) is a particularly ineffective predictive tool, but that qualitative assessments by previous mentors are more likely to identify students who will succeed in biomedical graduate research. Based on these results, we conclude that admissions committees should avoid over-reliance on any single component of the application and de-emphasize metrics that are minimally predictive of student productivity. We recommend continual tracking of desired training outcomes combined with retrospective analysis of admissions practices to guide both application requirements and holistic application review. PMID:28076439

Advances in polymeric systems for tissue engineering and biomedical applications.

PubMed

Ravichandran, Rajeswari; Sundarrajan, Subramanian; Venugopal, Jayarama Reddy; Mukherjee, Shayanti; Ramakrishna, Seeram

2012-03-01

The characteristics of tissue engineered scaffolds are major concerns in the quest to fabricate ideal scaffolds for tissue engineering applications. The polymer scaffolds employed for tissue engineering applications should possess multifunctional properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability and favorable mechanical properties as it comes in direct contact with the body fluids in vivo. Additionally, the polymer system should also possess biomimetic architecture and should support stem cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation. As the progress in polymer technology continues, polymeric biomaterials have taken characteristics more closely related to that desired for tissue engineering and clinical needs. Stimuli responsive polymers also termed as smart biomaterials respond to stimuli such as pH, temperature, enzyme, antigen, glucose and electrical stimuli that are inherently present in living systems. This review highlights the exciting advancements in these polymeric systems that relate to biological and tissue engineering applications. Additionally, several aspects of technology namely scaffold fabrication methods and surface modifications to confer biological functionality to the polymers have also been discussed. The ultimate objective is to emphasize on these underutilized adaptive behaviors of the polymers so that novel applications and new generations of smart polymeric materials can be realized for biomedical and tissue engineering applications. Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Supporting inter-topic entity search for biomedical Linked Data based on heterogeneous relationships.

PubMed

Zong, Nansu; Lee, Sungin; Ahn, Jinhyun; Kim, Hong-Gee

2017-08-01

The keyword-based entity search restricts search space based on the preference of search. When given keywords and preferences are not related to the same biomedical topic, existing biomedical Linked Data search engines fail to deliver satisfactory results. This research aims to tackle this issue by supporting an inter-topic search-improving search with inputs, keywords and preferences, under different topics. This study developed an effective algorithm in which the relations between biomedical entities were used in tandem with a keyword-based entity search, Siren. The algorithm, PERank, which is an adaptation of Personalized PageRank (PPR), uses a pair of input: (1) search preferences, and (2) entities from a keyword-based entity search with a keyword query, to formalize the search results on-the-fly based on the index of the precomputed Individual Personalized PageRank Vectors (IPPVs). Our experiments were performed over ten linked life datasets for two query sets, one with keyword-preference topic correspondence (intra-topic search), and the other without (inter-topic search). The experiments showed that the proposed method achieved better search results, for example a 14% increase in precision for the inter-topic search than the baseline keyword-based search engine. The proposed method improved the keyword-based biomedical entity search by supporting the inter-topic search without affecting the intra-topic search based on the relations between different entities. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Gender Writ Small: Gender Enactments and Gendered Narratives about Lab Organization and Knowledge Transmission in a Biomedical Engineering Research Setting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Malone, Kareen Ror; Nersessian, Nancy J.; Newstetter, Wendy

This article presents qualitative data and offers some innovative theoretical approaches to frame the analysis of gender in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) settings. It begins with a theoretical discussion of a discursive approach to gender that captures how gender is lived "on the ground." The authors argue for a less individualistic approach to gender. Data for this research project was gathered from intensive interviews with lab members and ethnographic observations in a biomedical engineering lab. Data analysis relied on a mixed methodology involving qualitative approaches and dialogues with findings from other research traditions. Three themes are highlighted: lab dynamics in relation to issues of critical mass, the division of labor, and knowledge transmission. The data illustrate how gender is created in interactions and is inflected through forms of social organization.

Continuous micron-scaled rope engineering using a rotating multi-nozzle electrospinning emitter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Chunchen; Gao, Chengcheng; Chang, Ming-Wei; Ahmad, Zeeshan; Li, Jing-Song

2016-10-01

Electrospinning (ES) enables simple production of fibers for broad applications (e.g., biomedical engineering, energy storage, and electronics). However, resulting structures are predominantly random; displaying significant disordered fiber entanglement, which inevitably gives rise to structural variations and reproducibility on the micron scale. Surface and structural features on this scale are critical for biomaterials, tissue engineering, and pharmaceutical sciences. In this letter, a modified ES technique using a rotating multi-nozzle emitter is developed and utilized to fabricate continuous micron-scaled polycaprolactone (PCL) ropes, providing control on fiber intercalation (twist) and structural order. Micron-scaled ropes comprising 312 twists per millimeter are generated, and rope diameter and pitch length are regulated using polymer concentration and process parameters. Electric field simulations confirm vector and distribution mechanisms, which influence fiber orientation and deposition during the process. The modified fabrication system provides much needed control on reproducibility and fiber entanglement which is crucial for electrospun biomedical materials.

Emergency Medical Technician Training During Medical School: Benefits for the Hidden Curriculum.

PubMed

Russ-Sellers, Rebecca; Blackwell, Thomas H

2017-07-01

Medical schools are encouraged to introduce students to clinical experiences early, to integrate biomedical and clinical sciences, and to expose students to interprofessional health providers and teams. One important goal is for students to gain a better understanding of the patients they will care for in the future and how their social and behavioral characteristics may affect care delivery. To promote early clinical exposure and biomedical integration, in 2012 the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville incorporated emergency medical technician (EMT) training into the curriculum. This report describes the program; outlines changes (made after year 1) to improve biomedical integration; and provides a brief analysis and categorization of comments from student reflections to determine whether particular themes, especially related to the hidden curriculum, appeared. Medical students wrote frequently about EMT-related experiences: 29% of reflections in the charter year (1.2 per student) and 38% of reflections in the second year (1.5 per student) focused on EMT-related experiences. Reflections related to patient care, professionalism, systems-based practice, and communication/interpersonal skills. The frequency of themes in student reflections may provide insight into a medical program's hidden curriculum. This information may serve to inform curricula that focus on biosocial elements such as professionalism and communication with the goal of enhancing future physicians' tolerance, empathy, and patient-centeredness. The authors plan to conduct further qualitative analysis of student reflections to iteratively revise curricula to address gaps both in learning and in the differences between the explicit curriculum and actual experiences.

Retention and promotion of women and underrepresented minority faculty in science and engineering at four large land grant institutions.

PubMed

Gumpertz, Marcia; Durodoye, Raifu; Griffith, Emily; Wilson, Alyson

2017-01-01

In the most recent cohort, 2002-2015, the experiences of men and women differed substantially among STEM disciplines. Female assistant professors were more likely than men to leave the institution and to leave without tenure in engineering, but not in the agricultural, biological and biomedical sciences and natural resources or physical and mathematical sciences. In contrast, the median times to promotion from associate to full professor were similar for women and men in engineering and the physical and mathematical sciences, but one to two years longer for women than men in the agricultural, biological and biomedical sciences and natural resources. URM faculty hiring is increasing, but is well below the proportions earning doctoral degrees in STEM disciplines. The results are variable and because of the small numbers of URM faculty, the precision and power for comparing URM faculty to other faculty were low. In three of the four institutions, lower fractions of URM faculty than other faculty hired in the 2002-2006 time frame left without tenure. Also, in the biological and biomedical and physical and mathematical sciences no URM faculty left without tenure. On the other hand, at two of the institutions, significantly more URM faculty left before their tenth anniversary than other faculty and in engineering significantly more URM faculty than other faculty left before their tenth anniversary. We did not find significant differences in promotion patterns between URM and other faculty.

GeneView: a comprehensive semantic search engine for PubMed.

PubMed

Thomas, Philippe; Starlinger, Johannes; Vowinkel, Alexander; Arzt, Sebastian; Leser, Ulf

2012-07-01

Research results are primarily published in scientific literature and curation efforts cannot keep up with the rapid growth of published literature. The plethora of knowledge remains hidden in large text repositories like MEDLINE. Consequently, life scientists have to spend a great amount of time searching for specific information. The enormous ambiguity among most names of biomedical objects such as genes, chemicals and diseases often produces too large and unspecific search results. We present GeneView, a semantic search engine for biomedical knowledge. GeneView is built upon a comprehensively annotated version of PubMed abstracts and openly available PubMed Central full texts. This semi-structured representation of biomedical texts enables a number of features extending classical search engines. For instance, users may search for entities using unique database identifiers or they may rank documents by the number of specific mentions they contain. Annotation is performed by a multitude of state-of-the-art text-mining tools for recognizing mentions from 10 entity classes and for identifying protein-protein interactions. GeneView currently contains annotations for >194 million entities from 10 classes for ∼21 million citations with 271,000 full text bodies. GeneView can be searched at http://bc3.informatik.hu-berlin.de/.

Polylactic acid (PLA) controlled delivery carriers for biomedical applications.

PubMed

Tyler, Betty; Gullotti, David; Mangraviti, Antonella; Utsuki, Tadanobu; Brem, Henry

2016-12-15

Polylactic acid (PLA) and its copolymers have a long history of safety in humans and an extensive range of applications. PLA is biocompatible, biodegradable by hydrolysis and enzymatic activity, has a large range of mechanical and physical properties that can be engineered appropriately to suit multiple applications, and has low immunogenicity. Formulations containing PLA have also been Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved for multiple applications making PLA suitable for expedited clinical translatability. These biomaterials can be fashioned into sutures, scaffolds, cell carriers, drug delivery systems, and a myriad of fabrications. PLA has been the focus of a multitude of preclinical and clinical testing. Three-dimensional printing has expanded the possibilities of biomedical engineering and has enabled the fabrication of a myriad of platforms for an extensive variety of applications. PLA has been widely used as temporary extracellular matrices in tissue engineering. At the other end of the spectrum, PLA's application as drug-loaded nanoparticle drug carriers, such as liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, dendrimers, and micelles, can encapsulate otherwise toxic hydrophobic anti-tumor drugs and evade systemic toxicities. The clinical translation of these technologies from preclinical experimental settings is an ever-evolving field with incremental advancements. In this review, some of the biomedical applications of PLA and its copolymers are highlighted and briefly summarized. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Synthesis and Ligand-Exchange Reactions of a Tri-Tungsten Cluster with Applications in Biomedical Imaging

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noey, Elizabeth; Curtis, Jeff C.; Tam, Sylvia; Pham, David M.; Jones, Ella F.

2011-01-01

In this experiment students are exposed to concepts in inorganic synthesis and various spectroscopies as applied to a tri-tungsten cluster with applications in biomedical imaging. The tungsten-acetate cluster, Na[W[superscript 3](mu-O)[subscript 2](CH[superscript 3]COO)[superscript 9

Swanson uses the BMMD in the SM

NASA Image and Video Library

2014-03-31

ISS039-E-008066 (30 March 2014) --- NASA astronaut Steve Swanson, Expedition 39 flight engineer, participates in body mass measurement/Russian biomedical routine assessments in the Zvezda Service Module of the International Space Station. Looking on is Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, flight engineer representing the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).

Effects of Interdisciplinary Education on Technology-Driven Application Design

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tafa, Z.; Rakocevic, G.; Mihailovic, D.; Milutinovic, V.

2011-01-01

This paper describes the structure and the underlying rationale of a new course dedicated to capability maturity model integration (CMMI)-directed design of wireless sensor networks (WSNs)-based biomedical applications that stresses: 1) engineering-, medico-engineering-, and informatics-related issues; 2) design for general- and special-purpose…

JPRS Report, Science & Technology, Europe Economic Competitiveness

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-11-14

budget resources, excluding industrial research, had increased from Fr35.6 billion in 1988 to Fr45 billion in 1992, i.e., an overall increase of...Research or the Biomedical Research Center, shows a disproportionately high growth of 18.8 percent. In environmental engineering, projects for...January 1992 with an initial complement of 350 employees, biomedical research and its clinical application will be carried out "as never before

Innovations in biomedical nanoengineering: nanowell array biosensor.

PubMed

Seo, YoungTae; Jeong, Sunil; Lee, JuKyung; Choi, Hak Soo; Kim, Jonghan; Lee, HeaYeon

2018-01-01

Nanostructured biosensors have pioneered biomedical engineering by providing highly sensitive analyses of biomolecules. The nanowell array (NWA)-based biosensing platform is particularly innovative, where the small size of NWs within the array permits extremely profound sensing of a small quantity of biomolecules. Undoubtedly, the NWA geometry of a gently-sloped vertical wall is critical for selective docking of specific proteins without capillary resistances, and nanoprocessing has contributed to the fabrication of NWA electrodes on gold substrate such as molding process, e-beam lithography, and krypton-fluoride (KrF) stepper semiconductor method. The Lee group at the Mara Nanotech has established this NW-based biosensing technology during the past two decades by engineering highly sensitive electrochemical sensors and providing a broad range of detection methods from large molecules (e.g., cells or proteins) to small molecules (e.g., DNA and RNA). Nanosized gold dots in the NWA enhance the detection of electrochemical biosensing to the range of zeptomoles in precision against the complementary target DNA molecules. In this review, we discuss recent innovations in biomedical nanoengineering with a specific focus on novel NWA-based biosensors. We also describe our continuous efforts in achieving a label-free detection without non-specific binding while maintaining the activity and stability of immobilized biomolecules. This research can lay the foundation of a new platform for biomedical nanoengineering systems.

Innovations in biomedical nanoengineering: nanowell array biosensor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seo, YoungTae; Jeong, Sunil; Lee, JuKyung; Choi, Hak Soo; Kim, Jonghan; Lee, HeaYeon

2018-04-01

Nanostructured biosensors have pioneered biomedical engineering by providing highly sensitive analyses of biomolecules. The nanowell array (NWA)-based biosensing platform is particularly innovative, where the small size of NWs within the array permits extremely profound sensing of a small quantity of biomolecules. Undoubtedly, the NWA geometry of a gently-sloped vertical wall is critical for selective docking of specific proteins without capillary resistances, and nanoprocessing has contributed to the fabrication of NWA electrodes on gold substrate such as molding process, e-beam lithography, and krypton-fluoride (KrF) stepper semiconductor method. The Lee group at the Mara Nanotech has established this NW-based biosensing technology during the past two decades by engineering highly sensitive electrochemical sensors and providing a broad range of detection methods from large molecules (e.g., cells or proteins) to small molecules (e.g., DNA and RNA). Nanosized gold dots in the NWA enhance the detection of electrochemical biosensing to the range of zeptomoles in precision against the complementary target DNA molecules. In this review, we discuss recent innovations in biomedical nanoengineering with a specific focus on novel NWA-based biosensors. We also describe our continuous efforts in achieving a label-free detection without non-specific binding while maintaining the activity and stability of immobilized biomolecules. This research can lay the foundation of a new platform for biomedical nanoengineering systems.

History of the biomedical studies PhD program: a joint graduate program of the Baylor Health Care system and Baylor University

PubMed Central

Morel, Christine R.; Horton, Joshua M.; Peng, Han; Xu, Kangling; Batra, Sushil K.; Miles, Jonathan P.

2008-01-01

On a sweltering summer morning, throngs of people filed into Jones Theatre at Baylor University in Waco for the graduate student orientation. One could look around and notice the diversity of not only the student population, but also the disciplines being represented. Many students had stepped off planes only hours prior, but even those who had been traveling for days could not contain their excitement. As for me, I was nowhere near any of this. I was still 40 miles north of Waco in Waxahachie, having been pulled over for speeding. After 4 days of traveling with my life in my Volkswagon Jetta, all the way from San Francisco, on one of the most important days of my life, I was late. When I finally arrived at the Hooper Schafer Fine Arts Auditorium, out of breath from running all the way from the parking structure, all of the graduate students were quietly listening to the first introductory speech. I snuck into the back and sat down. My mind was racing, as I knew very little about Waco and Baylor University except for the growing accomplishments of the biomedical studies program. What little I did know about Baylor seemed so different from my very liberal upbringing in California. What would this experience be like for me? But, as I listened to the talks, met with other students, and finally met the entire biomedical studies entering class of 2007, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming to Baylor. This would be an experience unlike any other, and I was wholeheartedly open to embracing it. —Christine Morel, PhD candidate, Institute of Biomedical Studies PMID:18982085

History of the biomedical studies PhD program: a joint graduate program of the Baylor Health Care system and Baylor University.

PubMed

Morel, Christine R; Horton, Joshua M; Peng, Han; Xu, Kangling; Batra, Sushil K; Miles, Jonathan P; Kane, Robert R

2008-10-01

On a sweltering summer morning, throngs of people filed into Jones Theatre at Baylor University in Waco for the graduate student orientation. One could look around and notice the diversity of not only the student population, but also the disciplines being represented. Many students had stepped off planes only hours prior, but even those who had been traveling for days could not contain their excitement. As for me, I was nowhere near any of this. I was still 40 miles north of Waco in Waxahachie, having been pulled over for speeding. After 4 days of traveling with my life in my Volkswagon Jetta, all the way from San Francisco, on one of the most important days of my life, I was late. When I finally arrived at the Hooper Schafer Fine Arts Auditorium, out of breath from running all the way from the parking structure, all of the graduate students were quietly listening to the first introductory speech. I snuck into the back and sat down. My mind was racing, as I knew very little about Waco and Baylor University except for the growing accomplishments of the biomedical studies program. What little I did know about Baylor seemed so different from my very liberal upbringing in California. What would this experience be like for me? But, as I listened to the talks, met with other students, and finally met the entire biomedical studies entering class of 2007, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming to Baylor. This would be an experience unlike any other, and I was wholeheartedly open to embracing it. -Christine Morel, PhD candidate, Institute of Biomedical Studies.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

David Kisailus; Lara Estroff; Himadri S. Gupta

The technical presentations and discussions at this symposium disseminated and assessed current research and defined future directions in biomaterials research, with a focus on structure-function relationships in biological and biomimetic composites. The invited and contributed talks covered a diverse range of topics from fundamental biology, physics, chemistry, and materials science to potential applications in developing areas such as light-weight composites, multifunctional and smart materials, biomedical engineering, and nanoscaled sensors. The invited speakers were chosen to create a stimulating program with a mixture of established and junior faculty, industrial and academic researchers, and American and international experts in the field. Thismore » symposium served as an excellent introduction to the area for younger scientists (graduate students and post-doctoral researchers). Direct interactions between participants also helped to promote potential future collaborations involving multiple disciplines and institutions.« less

Teaching Electrostatics and Entropy in Introductory Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reeves, Mark

Entropy changes underlie the physics that dominates biological interactions. Indeed, introductory biology courses often begin with an exploration of the qualities of water that are important to living systems. However, one idea that is not explicitly addressed in most introductory physics or biology courses is important contribution of the entropy in driving fundamental biological processes towards equilibrium. I will present material developed to teach electrostatic screening in solutions and the function of nerve cells where entropic effects act to counterbalance electrostatic attraction. These ideas are taught in an introductory, calculus-based physics course to biomedical engineers using SCALEUP pedagogy. Results of student mastering of complex problems that cross disciplinary boundaries between biology and physics, as well as the challenges that they face in learning this material will be presented.

Training Multidisciplinary Biomedical Informatics Students: Three Years of Experience

PubMed Central

van Mulligen, Erik M.; Cases, Montserrat; Hettne, Kristina; Molero, Eva; Weeber, Marc; Robertson, Kevin A.; Oliva, Baldomero; de la Calle, Guillermo; Maojo, Victor

2008-01-01

Objective The European INFOBIOMED Network of Excellence 1 recognized that a successful education program in biomedical informatics should include not only traditional teaching activities in the basic sciences but also the development of skills for working in multidisciplinary teams. Design A carefully developed 3-year training program for biomedical informatics students addressed these educational aspects through the following four activities: (1) an internet course database containing an overview of all Medical Informatics and BioInformatics courses, (2) a BioMedical Informatics Summer School, (3) a mobility program based on a ‘brokerage service’ which published demands and offers, including funding for research exchange projects, and (4) training challenges aimed at the development of multi-disciplinary skills. Measurements This paper focuses on experiences gained in the development of novel educational activities addressing work in multidisciplinary teams. The training challenges described here were evaluated by asking participants to fill out forms with Likert scale based questions. For the mobility program a needs assessment was carried out. Results The mobility program supported 20 exchanges which fostered new BMI research, resulted in a number of peer-reviewed publications and demonstrated the feasibility of this multidisciplinary BMI approach within the European Union. Students unanimously indicated that the training challenge experience had contributed to their understanding and appreciation of multidisciplinary teamwork. Conclusion The training activities undertaken in INFOBIOMED have contributed to a multi-disciplinary BMI approach. It is our hope that this work might provide an impetus for training efforts in Europe, and yield a new generation of biomedical informaticians. PMID:18096914

Incorporating collaboratory concepts into informatics in support of translational interdisciplinary biomedical research

PubMed Central

Lee, E. Sally; McDonald, David W.; Anderson, Nicholas; Tarczy-Hornoch, Peter

2008-01-01

Due to its complex nature, modern biomedical research has become increasingly interdisciplinary and collaborative in nature. Although a necessity, interdisciplinary biomedical collaboration is difficult. There is, however, a growing body of literature on the study and fostering of collaboration in fields such as computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) and information science (IS). These studies of collaboration provide insight into how to potentially alleviate the difficulties of interdisciplinary collaborative research. We, therefore, undertook a cross cutting study of science and engineering collaboratories to identify emergent themes. We review many relevant collaboratory concepts: (a) general collaboratory concepts across many domains: communication, common workspace and coordination, and data sharing and management, (b) specific collaboratory concepts of particular biomedical relevance: data integration and analysis, security structure, metadata and data provenance, and interoperability and data standards, (c) environmental factors that support collaboratories: administrative and management structure, technical support, and available funding as critical environmental factors, and (d) future considerations for biomedical collaboration: appropriate training and long-term planning. In our opinion, the collaboratory concepts we discuss can guide planning and design of future collaborative infrastructure by biomedical informatics researchers to alleviate some of the difficulties of interdisciplinary biomedical collaboration. PMID:18706852

The Early Tech Development Course: Experiential Commercialization Education for the Medical Academician.

PubMed

Servoss, Jonathan; Chang, Connie; Fay, Jonathan; Ward, Kevin

2017-04-01

Research produced by medical academicians holds promise for developing into biomedical innovations in therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, and health care information technology; however, the road to biomedical innovation is fraught with risk, including the challenge of moving from basic research insight onto a viable commercialization path. Compounding this challenge is the growing demand on medical academicians to be more productive in their clinical, teaching, and research duties within a resource-constrained environment. In 2014, the University of Michigan (UM) Medical School and College of Engineering codesigned and implemented an accelerated, biomedical-focused version of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. The UM Early Tech Development (ETD) Course, designed for medical academicians exploring the commercial potential of early-stage ideas, covers the NSF I-Corps concept; supports the formation of teams of faculty, graduate, and medical students; and accommodates medical academicians' schedules. From 2014 to 2015, the ETD Course graduated 39 project teams from UM and other institutions. One-third of the teams have continued to pursue their projects, receiving additional funding, engaging industry partners, or enrolling in the NSF I-Corps program. The ETD Course, a potential pipeline to the NSF I-Corps program, captures a target audience of medical academicians and others in academic medicine. To better understand the long-term effects of the course and its relationship to the NSF I-Corps program, the authors will conduct a study on the careers of all ETD Course graduates, including those who have enrolled in NSF I-Corps versus those who have not.

The Early Tech Development Course: Experiential Commercialization Education for the Medical Academician

PubMed Central

Chang, Connie; Fay, Jonathan; Ward, Kevin

2017-01-01

Problem Research produced by medical academicians holds promise for developing into biomedical innovations in therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, and health care information technology; however, the road to biomedical innovation is fraught with risk, including the challenge of moving from basic research insight onto a viable commercialization path. Compounding this challenge is the growing demand on medical academicians to be more productive in their clinical, teaching, and research duties within a resource-constrained environment. Approach In 2014, the University of Michigan (UM) Medical School and College of Engineering codesigned and implemented an accelerated, biomedical-focused version of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. The UM Early Tech Development (ETD) Course, designed for medical academicians exploring the commercial potential of early-stage ideas, covers the NSF I-Corps concept; supports the formation of teams of faculty, graduate, and medical students; and accommodates medical academicians’ schedules. Outcomes From 2014 to 2015, the ETD Course graduated 39 project teams from UM and other institutions. One-third of the teams have continued to pursue their projects, receiving additional funding, engaging industry partners, or enrolling in the NSF I-Corps program. Next Steps The ETD Course, a potential pipeline to the NSF I-Corps program, captures a target audience of medical academicians and others in academic medicine. To better understand the long-term effects of the course and its relationship to the NSF I-Corps program, the authors will conduct a study on the careers of all ETD Course graduates, including those who have enrolled in NSF I-Corps versus those who have not. PMID:28351064

Crowdsourcing biomedical research: leveraging communities as innovation engines

PubMed Central

Saez-Rodriguez, Julio; Costello, James C.; Friend, Stephen H.; Kellen, Michael R.; Mangravite, Lara; Meyer, Pablo; Norman, Thea; Stolovitzky, Gustavo

2018-01-01

The generation of large-scale biomedical data is creating unprecedented opportunities for basic and translational science. Typically, the data producers perform initial analyses, but it is very likely that the most informative methods may reside with other groups. Crowdsourcing the analysis of complex and massive data has emerged as a framework to find robust methodologies. When the crowdsourcing is done in the form of collaborative scientific competitions, known as Challenges, the validation of the methods is inherently addressed. Challenges also encourage open innovation, create collaborative communities to solve diverse and important biomedical problems, and foster the creation and dissemination of well-curated data repositories. PMID:27418159

Crowdsourcing biomedical research: leveraging communities as innovation engines.

PubMed

Saez-Rodriguez, Julio; Costello, James C; Friend, Stephen H; Kellen, Michael R; Mangravite, Lara; Meyer, Pablo; Norman, Thea; Stolovitzky, Gustavo

2016-07-15

The generation of large-scale biomedical data is creating unprecedented opportunities for basic and translational science. Typically, the data producers perform initial analyses, but it is very likely that the most informative methods may reside with other groups. Crowdsourcing the analysis of complex and massive data has emerged as a framework to find robust methodologies. When the crowdsourcing is done in the form of collaborative scientific competitions, known as Challenges, the validation of the methods is inherently addressed. Challenges also encourage open innovation, create collaborative communities to solve diverse and important biomedical problems, and foster the creation and dissemination of well-curated data repositories.

New graduate students' baseline knowledge of the responsible conduct of research.

PubMed

Heitman, Elizabeth; Olsen, Cara H; Anestidou, Lida; Bulger, Ruth Ellen

2007-09-01

To assess (1) new biomedical science graduate students' baseline knowledge of core concepts and standards in responsible conduct of research (RCR), (2) differences in graduate students' baseline knowledge overall and across the Office of Research Integrity's nine core areas, and (3) demographic and educational factors in these differences. A 30-question, computer-scored multiple-choice test on core concepts and standards of RCR was developed following content analysis of 20 United States-published RCR texts, and combined with demographic questions on undergraduate experience with RCR developed from graduate student focus groups. Four hundred two new graduate students at three health science universities were recruited for Scantron and online testing before beginning RCR instruction. Two hundred fifty-one of 402 eligible trainees (62%) at three universities completed the test; scores ranged from 26.7% to 83.3%, with a mean of 59.5%. Only seven (3%) participants scored 80% or above. Students who received their undergraduate education outside the United States scored significantly lower (mean 52.0%) than those with U.S. bachelor's degrees (mean 60.5%, P < .001). Participants with prior graduate biomedical or health professions education scored marginally higher than new students, but both groups' mean scores were well below 80%. The mean score of 16 participants who reported previous graduate-level RCR instruction was 67.7%. Participants' specific knowledge varied, but overall scores were universally low. New graduate biomedical sciences students have inadequate and inconsistent knowledge of RCR, irrespective of their prior education or experience. Incoming trainees with previous graduate RCR education may also have gaps in core knowledge.

Critical race theory as a bridge in science training: the California State University, Northridge BUILD PODER program.

PubMed

Saetermoe, Carrie L; Chavira, Gabriela; Khachikian, Crist S; Boyns, David; Cabello, Beverly

2017-01-01

Unconscious bias and explicit forms of discrimination continue to pervade academic institutions. Multicultural and diversity training activities have not been sufficient in making structural and social changes leading to equity, therefore, a new form of critical consciousness is needed to train diverse scientists with new research questions, methods, and perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to describe Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD); Promoting Opportunities for Diversity in Education and Research (PODER), which is an undergraduate biomedical research training program based on transformative framework rooted in Critical Race Theory (CRT). By employing a CRT-informed curriculum and training in BUILD PODER, students are empowered not only to gain access but also to thrive in graduate programs and beyond. Poder means "power" or "to be able to" in Spanish. Essentially, we are "building power" using students' strengths and empowering them as learners. The new curriculum helps students understand institutional policies and practices that may prevent them from persisting in higher education, learn to become their own advocates, and successfully confront social barriers and instances of inequities and discrimination. To challenge these barriers and sustain campus changes in support of students, BUILD PODER works toward changing campus culture and research mentoring relationships. By joining with ongoing university structures such as the state university Graduation Initiative, we include CRT tenets into the campus dialogue and stimulate campus-wide discussions around institutional change. Strong ties with five community college partners also enrich BUILD PODER's student body and strengthen mentor diversity. Preliminary evaluation data suggest that BUILD PODER's program has enhanced the racial/ethnic consciousness of the campus community, is effective in encouraging more egalitarian and respectful faculty-student relationships, and is a rigorous program of biomedical research training that supports students as they achieve their goals. Biomedical research programs may benefit from a reanalysis of the fit between current training programs and student strengths. By incorporating the voices of talented youth, drawing upon their native strengths, we will generate a new science that links biomedical research to community health and social justice, generating progress toward health equity through a promising new generation of scholars.

Using Role Play to Debate Animal Testing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Agell, Laia; Soria, Vanessa; Carrió, Mar

2015-01-01

The use of animals in biomedical research is a socio-scientific issue in which decision-making is complicated. In this article, we describe an experience involving a role play activity performed during school visits to the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) to debate animal testing. Role playing games require students to defend different…

Responsive Biomaterials: Advances in Materials Based on Shape-Memory Polymers.

PubMed

Hardy, John G; Palma, Matteo; Wind, Shalom J; Biggs, Manus J

2016-07-01

Shape-memory polymers (SMPs) are morphologically responsive materials with potential for a variety of biomedical applications, particularly as devices for minimally invasive surgery and the delivery of therapeutics and cells for tissue engineering. A brief introduction to SMPs is followed by a discussion of the current progress toward the development of SMP-based biomaterials for clinically relevant biomedical applications. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

[Progress of research on genetic engineering antibody and its application in prevention and control of parasitic diseases].

PubMed

Yao, Yuan; Yu, Chuan-xin

2013-08-01

Antibody has extensive application prospects in the biomedical field. The inherent disadvantages of traditional polyclonal antibody and monoclonal antibody limit their application values. The humanized and fragmented antibody remodeling has given a rise to a series of genetic engineered antibody variant. This paper reviews the progress of research on genetic engineering antibody and its application in prevention and control of parasitic diseases.

Biomedical engineering education at Politecnico di Milano: development and recent changes.

PubMed

Baselli, G

2009-05-01

The biomedical engineering (BME) programme at the Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) is characterized by a strong interdisciplinary background in a broad range of engineering subjects applied to biology and medicine. Accordingly, the undergraduate level (3 years) provides a general education, which includes mechanics, chemistry and materials, electronics, and information technology both in the context of general engineering and within BME foundations. In contrast, the postgraduate programme (2 years) offers a broad choice of specializations in BME fields in close connection with the BME research activities and laboratories of the campus and with active interchange with the other engineering disciplines. The history of BME development at POLIMI is briefly recalled, together with the characteristics of educational and research work, which is strongly biased by a large polytechnic university with no medical school within the same campus; points of strength and weakness due to this background are discussed. The introduction of a double cycle (undergraduate and postgraduate) according to the Bologna process (2000) and the effects on the programme structure is considered. An early phase in which professional education was emphasized at undergraduate level is recalled, which was followed by the actual revision fostering basic engineering and BME education at the first level while leaving in-depth specialization to postgraduate studies or to on-the-job training.

Scientific and Engineering Research Facilities: 2001. Detailed Statistical Tables.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA. Div. of Science Resources Studies.

This report presents information on the amount of science and engineering (S&E) research space existing at U.S. colleges, universities, and nonprofit biomedical research institutions based on research data collected biennially through the National Science Foundation. Data are also provided on the adequacy of this research space to meet current…

Effective Design of Educational Virtual Reality Applications for Medicine Using Knowledge-Engineering Techniques

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Górski, Filip; Bun, Pawel; Wichniarek, Radoslaw; Zawadzki, Przemyslaw; Hamrol, Adam

2017-01-01

Effective medical and biomedical engineering education is an important problem. Traditional methods are difficult and costly. That is why Virtual Reality is often used for that purpose. Educational medical VR is a well-developed IT field, with many available hardware and software solutions. Current solutions are prepared without methodological…

John Kuniholm: An Ordinary Man with an Extraordinary Story

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, John M.

2006-01-01

This article profiles John Kuniholm, a 34-year-old PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at Duke University and has master's degrees in mechanical engineering and industrial design from North Carolina State University. He has worked in the research and development of tools for robotic cardiac surgery for Cardiovations, a Johnson & Johnson…

From Gene to Protein: A 3-Week Intensive Course in Molecular Biology for Physical Scientists

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nadeau, Jay L.

2009-01-01

This article describes a 3-week intensive molecular biology methods course based upon fluorescent proteins, which is successfully taught at the McGill University to advanced undergraduates and graduates in physics, chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, and medicine. No previous knowledge of biological terminology or methods is expected, so…

PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate enhances recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority graduate students.

PubMed

Tull, Renetta G; Rutledge, Janet C; Carter, Frances D; Warnick, Jordan E

2012-11-01

PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), sponsored by the National Science Foundation, is a consortium that is designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority (URM) PhDs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields who will pursue academic careers. A strength of PROMISE is its alliance infrastructure that connects URM graduate students on different campuses through centralized programming for the three research universities in Maryland: the University of Maryland Baltimore County (the lead institution in the alliance), the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB). PROMISE initiatives cover graduate student recruitment, retention, community building, PhD completion, and transition to careers.Although it is not a fellowship, PROMISE offers professional development and skill-building programs that provide academic and personal support for URM students on all three campuses. PROMISE on UMB's campus includes the School of Medicine, which sponsors tricampus programs that promote health and wellness to accompany traditional professional development programs. PROMISE uniquely and atypically includes a medical school within its alliance. The PROMISE programs serve as interventions that reduce isolation and facilitate degree completion among diverse students on each campus. This article describes details of the PROMISE AGEP and presents suggestions for replicating professional development programs for URMs in biomedical, MD/master's, and MD/PhD programs on other campuses.

Biofluid Mechanics Education at U Michigan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grotberg, James

2007-11-01

At the University of Michigan, biofluid mechanics is taught in the Department of Biomedical Engineering with cross-listing in Mechanical Engineering. The course has evolved over 25 years and serves advanced undergraduates and graduate students. The course description is as follows: BiomedE/MechE 476 Biofluid Mechanics. CATALOG DESCRIPTION: This is an intermediate level fluid mechanics course which uses examples from biotechnology processes and physiologic applications including cellular, cardiovascular, respiratory, ocular, renal, orthopedic, and gastrointestinal systems. COURSE TOPICS: 1. Dimensional analysis (gastrointestinal, renal) 2. Approximation methods, numerical methods (biotechnology, respiratory) 3. Particle kinematics in Eulerian and Lagrangian references frames (biotechnology, respiratory) 4. Conservation of mass and momentum 5. Constitutive equations (blood, mucus) 6. Kinematic and stress boundary conditions: rigid, flexible, porous (cardio-pulmonary, cellular) 7. Surface tension phenomena (pulmonary, ocular) 8. Flow and wave propagation in flexible tubes (cardio-pulmonary) 9. Oscillatory and pulsatile flows (cardio-pulmonary, orthopedic) 10. High Reynolds number flows (cardio-pulmonary) 11. Low Reynolds number flows (biotechnology, cellular, vascular) 12. Lubrication theory (vascular, orthopedic) 13. Flow in poroelastic media (orthopedic, pulmonary, ocular) 14. Video presentations of laboratory experiments.

BIT: Biosignal Igniter Toolkit.

PubMed

da Silva, Hugo Plácido; Lourenço, André; Fred, Ana; Martins, Raúl

2014-06-01

The study of biosignals has had a transforming role in multiple aspects of our society, which go well beyond the health sciences domains to which they were traditionally associated with. While biomedical engineering is a classical discipline where the topic is amply covered, today biosignals are a matter of interest for students, researchers and hobbyists in areas including computer science, informatics, electrical engineering, among others. Regardless of the context, the use of biosignals in experimental activities and practical projects is heavily bounded by the cost, and limited access to adequate support materials. In this paper we present an accessible, albeit versatile toolkit, composed of low-cost hardware and software, which was created to reinforce the engagement of different people in the field of biosignals. The hardware consists of a modular wireless biosignal acquisition system that can be used to support classroom activities, interface with other devices, or perform rapid prototyping of end-user applications. The software comprehends a set of programming APIs, a biosignal processing toolbox, and a framework for real time data acquisition and postprocessing. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cloud computing applications for biomedical science: A perspective.

PubMed

Navale, Vivek; Bourne, Philip E

2018-06-01

Biomedical research has become a digital data-intensive endeavor, relying on secure and scalable computing, storage, and network infrastructure, which has traditionally been purchased, supported, and maintained locally. For certain types of biomedical applications, cloud computing has emerged as an alternative to locally maintained traditional computing approaches. Cloud computing offers users pay-as-you-go access to services such as hardware infrastructure, platforms, and software for solving common biomedical computational problems. Cloud computing services offer secure on-demand storage and analysis and are differentiated from traditional high-performance computing by their rapid availability and scalability of services. As such, cloud services are engineered to address big data problems and enhance the likelihood of data and analytics sharing, reproducibility, and reuse. Here, we provide an introductory perspective on cloud computing to help the reader determine its value to their own research.

Cloud computing applications for biomedical science: A perspective

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Biomedical research has become a digital data–intensive endeavor, relying on secure and scalable computing, storage, and network infrastructure, which has traditionally been purchased, supported, and maintained locally. For certain types of biomedical applications, cloud computing has emerged as an alternative to locally maintained traditional computing approaches. Cloud computing offers users pay-as-you-go access to services such as hardware infrastructure, platforms, and software for solving common biomedical computational problems. Cloud computing services offer secure on-demand storage and analysis and are differentiated from traditional high-performance computing by their rapid availability and scalability of services. As such, cloud services are engineered to address big data problems and enhance the likelihood of data and analytics sharing, reproducibility, and reuse. Here, we provide an introductory perspective on cloud computing to help the reader determine its value to their own research. PMID:29902176

Finding and accessing diagrams in biomedical publications.

PubMed

Kuhn, Tobias; Luong, ThaiBinh; Krauthammer, Michael

2012-01-01

Complex relationships in biomedical publications are often communicated by diagrams such as bar and line charts, which are a very effective way of summarizing and communicating multi-faceted data sets. Given the ever-increasing amount of published data, we argue that the precise retrieval of such diagrams is of great value for answering specific and otherwise hard-to-meet information needs. To this end, we demonstrate the use of advanced image processing and classification for identifying bar and line charts by the shape and relative location of the different image elements that make up the charts. With recall and precisions of close to 90% for the detection of relevant figures, we discuss the use of this technology in an existing biomedical image search engine, and outline how it enables new forms of literature queries over biomedical relationships that are represented in these charts.

An overview of biomedical literature search on the World Wide Web in the third millennium.

PubMed

Kumar, Prince; Goel, Roshni; Jain, Chandni; Kumar, Ashish; Parashar, Abhishek; Gond, Ajay Ratan

2012-06-01

Complete access to the existing pool of biomedical literature and the ability to "hit" upon the exact information of the relevant specialty are becoming essential elements of academic and clinical expertise. With the rapid expansion of the literature database, it is almost impossible to keep up to date with every innovation. Using the Internet, however, most people can freely access this literature at any time, from almost anywhere. This paper highlights the use of the Internet in obtaining valuable biomedical research information, which is mostly available from journals, databases, textbooks and e-journals in the form of web pages, text materials, images, and so on. The authors present an overview of web-based resources for biomedical researchers, providing information about Internet search engines (e.g., Google), web-based bibliographic databases (e.g., PubMed, IndMed) and how to use them, and other online biomedical resources that can assist clinicians in reaching well-informed clinical decisions.

Production and Status of Bacterial Cellulose in Biomedical Engineering

PubMed Central

Moniri, Mona; Boroumand Moghaddam, Amin; Abdul Rahim, Raha; Bin Ariff, Arbakariya; Zuhainis Saad, Wan; Navaderi, Mohammad; Mohamad, Rosfarizan

2017-01-01

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a highly pure and crystalline material generated by aerobic bacteria, which has received significant interest due to its unique physiochemical characteristics in comparison with plant cellulose. BC, alone or in combination with different components (e.g., biopolymers and nanoparticles), can be used for a wide range of applications, such as medical products, electrical instruments, and food ingredients. In recent years, biomedical devices have gained important attention due to the increase in medical engineering products for wound care, regeneration of organs, diagnosis of diseases, and drug transportation. Bacterial cellulose has potential applications across several medical sectors and permits the development of innovative materials. This paper reviews the progress of related research, including overall information about bacterial cellulose, production by microorganisms, mechanisms as well as BC cultivation and its nanocomposites. The latest use of BC in the biomedical field is thoroughly discussed with its applications in both a pure and composite form. This paper concludes the further investigations of BC in the future that are required to make it marketable in vital biomaterials.

Implementation of an education-focused PhD program in anatomy and cell biology at Indiana University: lessons learned and future challenges.

PubMed

Brokaw, James J; O'Loughlin, Valerie D

2015-01-01

In 2008, the Indiana University School of Medicine, in collaboration with the School of Education, admitted its first student to a newly approved PhD program in Anatomy and Cell Biology focusing on educational research rather than biomedical research. The goal of the program is twofold: (1) to provide students with extensive training in all of the anatomical disciplines coupled with sufficient teaching experience to assume major educational responsibilities upon graduation and (2) to train students to conduct rigorous medical education research and other scholarly work necessary for promotion and tenure. The 90 credit hour curriculum consists of biomedical courses taught within the School of Medicine and education courses taught within the School of Education, including courses in health sciences pedagogy, curriculum development, learning theory, quantitative, and qualitative research methods, statistics, and electives. To date, 16 students have entered the program, seven have passed their qualifying examinations, and five have earned their PhD degrees. Four students have received national recognition for their educational research and four graduates have obtained faculty appointments. Going forward, we must adapt the program's biomedical course requirements to incorporate the new integrated curriculum of the medical school, and we must secure additional funding to support more students. Overcoming these challenges will enable us to continue producing a small but stable supply of doctoral-level anatomy educators for a growing academic market. © 2014 American Association of Anatomists.

Strategies for Diversifying the Pool of Graduate Students in Biomedical Sciences

PubMed Central

Coronado, Gloria D.; Shuster, Michele; Ulrich, Angie; Anderson, Jennifer; Loest, Helena

2012-01-01

As part of our National Cancer Institute–sponsored partnership between New Mexico State University and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, we implemented the Cancer Research Internship for Undergraduate Students to expand the pipeline of underrepresented students who can conduct cancer-related research. A total of 21 students participated in the program from 2008 to 2011. Students were generally of senior standing (47%), female (90%), and Hispanic (85%). We present a logic model to describe the short-term, medium-term, and long-term outputs of the program. Comparisons of pre- and post-internship surveys showed significant improvements in short-term outputs including interest (p<0.001) and motivation (p<0.001) to attend graduate school, as well as preparedness to conduct research (p=0.01) and write a personal statement (p=0.04). Thirteen students were successfully tracked, and of the 9 who had earned a bachelor’s degree, 6 were admitted into a graduate program (67%), and 4 of these programs were in the biomedical sciences. PMID:22576869

Comparison of Pharmacy Students’ Perceived and Actual Knowledge Using the Pharmacy Curricular Outcomes Assessment

PubMed Central

Friesner, Daniel L.

2012-01-01

Objective. To determine whether a correlation exists between third-year PharmD students’ perceived pharmacy knowledge and actual pharmacy knowledge as assessed by the Pharmacy Curricular Outcomes Assessment (PCOA). Methods. In 2010 and 2011, the PCOA was administered in a low-stakes environment to third-year pharmacy students at North Dakota State University College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Sciences (COPNAS). A survey instrument was also administered on which students self-assessed their perceived competencies in each of the core areas covered by the PCOA examination. Results. The pharmacy students rated their competencies slightly higher than average. Performance on the PCOA was similar to but slightly higher than national averages. Correlations between each of the 4 content areas (basic biomedical sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, social/administrative sciences, and clinical sciences) mirrored those reported nationally by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy (NABP). Student performance on the basic biomedical sciences portion of the PCOA was significantly correlated with students’ perceived competencies in the biomedical sciences. No other correlations between actual and perceived competencies were significant. Conclusion. A lack of correlation exists between what students perceive they know and what they actually know in the areas of pharmaceutical science; social, behavioral, and administrative science; and clinical science. Therefore, additional standardized measures are needed to assess curricular effectiveness and provide comparisons among pharmacy programs. PMID:22611272

The Role of Professional Identity in Graduate School Success for Under-Represented Minority Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim-Prieto, Chu; Copeland, H. Liesel; Hopson, Rodney; Simmons, Toya; Leibowitz, Michael J.

2013-01-01

We examined the relationship between sense of professional identity and academic success among under-represented minority graduate students in a biomedical doctoral program. We found that a sense of professional identity is related to science success among under-represented minority students, but not for non-underrepresented minority students.…

Aligning Biochemistry to the Interests of Biology Students Using Haloperoxidase to Illustrate Reactions of Environmental and Biomedical Importance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jervis, Les; Jervis, Loretta M.; Giovannelli, Donato

2005-01-01

Undergraduate degree programs in the biosciences almost always include elements of biochemistry. In the United Kingdom, biosciences programs often have optional pathways to accommodate students of diverse interests. These programs rarely require students to demonstrate any school-level chemistry knowledge, and many students find biochemistry…

Telescience testbed for biomedical experiments in space morphological and physiological experiments of rat musculoskeletal system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Watanabe, Satoru; Tanaka, Masafumi; Wada, Yoshiro; Yanagihara, Dai; Tsujimoto, Naoya; Suzuki, Hideki; Kawai, Noriyo; Yamashita, Masamichi; Nagaoka, Shunji; Shoji, Takatoshi; Higashino, Shinichiro; Sudoh, Hideo

As the second telescience testbed experiment we were examined sophisticated processes of biomedical experiment, such as an implantation of a transmitter into the hmster's abdominal cavity, non-stressful blood sampling, large amountof blood collection, muscle extirpation and biopsy from the hamsters on Feburay 6-8, 1990. To make clear the differences between successful results obtained by an experienced hand and by a non-experienced one, three operators wereselected for three successive experimental days; an engineer who had never experienced any biological experiment, a non-biology student, who experienced on biological experiments, and a veterinary surgeon. Surgical procedures need much experiences on maneuvering and understanding of theory to shorten the elapse time. Especially for a non-experienced hand, graphic instructions were much helpful to understand and to maneuver the procedures. Continuous recordings of ECG from a operator and PIs were of an advantage to grasp an extent of the mental strain, which was compared with their reports requested after end of each experimental day. The mental strain was not related to degrees of scientific achievement, but showed faithfully difficulty of each experimental procedure. Training effects on PIs in successive experimental days were found in their instructions for the operator to let understand the procedures.

A participatory learning approach to biochemistry using student authored and evaluated multiple-choice questions.

PubMed

Bottomley, Steven; Denny, Paul

2011-01-01

A participatory learning approach, combined with both a traditional and a competitive assessment, was used to motivate students and promote a deep approach to learning biochemistry. Students were challenged to research, author, and explain their own multiple-choice questions (MCQs). They were also required to answer, evaluate, and discuss MCQs written by their peers. The technology used to support this activity was PeerWise--a freely available, innovative web-based system that supports students in the creation of an annotated question repository. In this case study, we describe students' contributions to, and perceptions of, the PeerWise system for a cohort of 107 second-year biomedical science students from three degree streams studying a core biochemistry subject. Our study suggests that the students are eager participants and produce a large repository of relevant, good quality MCQs. In addition, they rate the PeerWise system highly and use higher order thinking skills while taking an active role in their learning. We also discuss potential issues and future work using PeerWise for biomedical students. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Preparing minority undergraduate students for successful science careers.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akundi, Murty

2008-03-01

Xavier University of Louisiana is well known for being number one in graduating the most minority students in physical and biological sciences. The reason for this success is built on the concept of Standards with Sympathy in the Sciences (Triple S). This is an outgrowth of over twenty years of planning and development by the Xavier science faculty to devise a program for preparing and retaining students in the sciences and engineering. Xavier has been successfully conducting for over ten years, Summer Science Academy (SSA) for middle and high school students; Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Scholars and Howard Hughes Biomedical programs for in-coming freshmen. Recently, through a grant from NSF, we have developed the Experiential Problem-solving and Analytical Reasoning (EPsAR) summer bridge program for in-coming freshmen who were given conditional admission to the university (i.e., those students who scored below the acceptable range for placement into degree mathematics courses). In this program, EPsAR participants will be engaged in problem-solving and critical thinking activities for eight hours per day, five days per week, for six weeks. Additionally, an interdisciplinary approach is taken to convey the mathematical skills learned to relate to physics, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Sixty-six students have participated in the last two years in the EPsAR program. During the first year 23 of 28 students successfully bi-passed the algebra review course and were placed into a degree credit course in mathematics. In the second year, thirty-one (31) of the 38 were advanced to a higher-level mathematics course. Twenty-three (23) out of 38 went on to degree credit math course. To retain students in the sciences peer tutoring in all the science disciplines are made available to students throughout the day for 5 days per week. Faculty and students are available to give guidance to the needed students. The University has established a Graduate Placement Office and a Center for Undergraduate Research to facilitate students' pursuit of gradate studies. The results of these efforts indicate a 40 percent graduation rate in four years and increased to 90 percent in six years in the natural sciences and 50 percent of these graduates pursue graduate/professional careers.

α-Amino acid containing degradable polymers as functional biomaterials: rational design, synthetic pathway, and biomedical applications.

PubMed

Sun, Huanli; Meng, Fenghua; Dias, Aylvin A; Hendriks, Marc; Feijen, Jan; Zhong, Zhiyuan

2011-06-13

Currently, biomedical engineering is rapidly expanding, especially in the areas of drug delivery, gene transfer, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. A prerequisite for further development is the design and synthesis of novel multifunctional biomaterials that are biocompatible and biologically active, are biodegradable with a controlled degradation rate, and have tunable mechanical properties. In the past decades, different types of α-amino acid-containing degradable polymers have been actively developed with the aim to obtain biomimicking functional biomaterials. The use of α-amino acids as building units for degradable polymers may offer several advantages: (i) imparting chemical functionality, such as hydroxyl, amine, carboxyl, and thiol groups, which not only results in improved hydrophilicity and possible interactions with proteins and genes, but also facilitates further modification with bioactive molecules (e.g., drugs or biological cues); (ii) possibly improving materials biological properties, including cell-materials interactions (e.g., cell adhesion, migration) and degradability; (iii) enhancing thermal and mechanical properties; and (iv) providing metabolizable building units/blocks. In this paper, recent developments in the field of α-amino acid-containing degradable polymers are reviewed. First, synthetic approaches to prepare α-amino acid-containing degradable polymers will be discussed. Subsequently, the biomedical applications of these polymers in areas such as drug delivery, gene delivery and tissue engineering will be reviewed. Finally, the future perspectives of α-amino acid-containing degradable polymers will be evaluated.

USNCTAM perspectives on mechanics in medicine

PubMed Central

Bao, Gang; Bazilevs, Yuri; Chung, Jae-Hyun; Decuzzi, Paolo; Espinosa, Horacio D.; Ferrari, Mauro; Gao, Huajian; Hossain, Shaolie S.; Hughes, Thomas J. R.; Kamm, Roger D.; Liu, Wing Kam; Marsden, Alison; Schrefler, Bernhard

2014-01-01

Over decades, the theoretical and applied mechanics community has developed sophisticated approaches for analysing the behaviour of complex engineering systems. Most of these approaches have targeted systems in the transportation, materials, defence and energy industries. Applying and further developing engineering approaches for understanding, predicting and modulating the response of complicated biomedical processes not only holds great promise in meeting societal needs, but also poses serious challenges. This report, prepared for the US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, aims to identify the most pressing challenges in biological sciences and medicine that can be tackled within the broad field of mechanics. This echoes and complements a number of national and international initiatives aiming at fostering interdisciplinary biomedical research. This report also comments on cultural/educational challenges. Specifically, this report focuses on three major thrusts in which we believe mechanics has and will continue to have a substantial impact. (i) Rationally engineering injectable nano/microdevices for imaging and therapy of disease. Within this context, we discuss nanoparticle carrier design, vascular transport and adhesion, endocytosis and tumour growth in response to therapy, as well as uncertainty quantification techniques to better connect models and experiments. (ii) Design of biomedical devices, including point-of-care diagnostic systems, model organ and multi-organ microdevices, and pulsatile ventricular assistant devices. (iii) Mechanics of cellular processes, including mechanosensing and mechanotransduction, improved characterization of cellular constitutive behaviour, and microfluidic systems for single-cell studies. PMID:24872502

Results From the John Glenn Biomedical Engineering Consortium. A Success Story for NASA and Northeast Ohio

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nall, Marsha M.; Barna, Gerald J.

2009-01-01

The John Glenn Biomedical Engineering Consortium was established by NASA in 2002 to formulate and implement an integrated, interdisciplinary research program to address risks faced by astronauts during long-duration space missions. The consortium is comprised of a preeminent team of Northeast Ohio institutions that include Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Case Medical Center, The National Center for Space Exploration Research, and the NASA Glenn Research Center. The John Glenn Biomedical Engineering Consortium research is focused on fluid physics and sensor technology that addresses the critical risks to crew health, safety, and performance. Effectively utilizing the unique skills, capabilities and facilities of the consortium members is also of prime importance. Research efforts were initiated with a general call for proposals to the consortium members. The top proposals were selected for funding through a rigorous, peer review process. The review included participation from NASA's Johnson Space Center, which has programmatic responsibility for NASA's Human Research Program. The projects range in scope from delivery of prototype hardware to applied research that enables future development of advanced technology devices. All of the projects selected for funding have been completed and the results are summarized. Because of the success of the consortium, the member institutions have extended the original agreement to continue this highly effective research collaboration through 2011.

Commercial Biomedical Experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

Experiments to seek solutions for a range of biomedical issues are at the heart of several investigations that will be hosted by the Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates (ITA), Inc. Biomedical Experiments (CIBX-2) payload. CIBX-2 is unique, encompassing more than 20 separate experiments including cancer research, commercial experiments, and student hands-on experiments from 10 schools as part of ITA's ongoing University Among the Stars program. Valerie Cassanto of ITA checks the Canadian Protein Crystallization Experiment (CAPE) carried by STS-86 to Mir in 1997. The experiments are sponsored by NASA's Space Product Development Program (SPD).

Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates, Biomedical Experiments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2003-01-01

Experiments to seek solutions for a range of biomedical issues are at the heart of several investigations that will be hosted by the Commercial Instrumentation Technology Associates (ITA), Inc. Biomedical Experiments (CIBX-2) payload. CIBX-2 is unique, encompassing more than 20 separate experiments including cancer research, commercial experiments, and student hands-on experiments from 10 schools as part of ITA's ongoing University Among the Stars program. A number of Liquids Mixing Apparatus (LMA) syringes like this one will be used in the experiments. The experiments are sponsored by NASA's Space Product Development Program (SPD).