Biomedical Engineering

Chair: Frank Yin

Home Page: http://biomed.wustl.edu/ Location: 190 Whitaker Hall

Founded in 1997, our biomedical engineering department benefits from an extensive and collegial relationship with our world-renowned medical school. The Uncas A. Whitaker Hall for Biomedical Engineering, completed in 2002, is the home for the department's teaching and research activities.

The educational programs are implemented via an Institute of Biological and Medical Engineering (IBME) -- a joint enterprise of the schools of medicine and engineering. The IBME comprises a network of more than 80 faculty involved in biomedical engineering-related research. This unique entity is a manifestation of the strong collaboration between the two schools and provides students access to a diverse array of opportunities for research training via five IBME programs.

The goal of biomedical engineering is to integrate basic biology with the advanced quantitative and analytical methods of engineering. Integration is stressed not only from the single molecule level to that of the entire organism but also to take advantage of the new advances in the many disciplines involved in biomedical engineering research.

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

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Marking milestones DBBS marks 35th anniversary, 1,000th graduate April 17, 2008 -- Washington University's Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences (DBBS) celebrated two milestones May 1-2: its 35th anniversary and the graduation of its 1,000th student. The Division spans both the University's Danforth and Medical campuses to provide Ph.D. training programs in biology and the biomedical sciences. Established in 1973, the Division has become the national model for graduate education in biology and biomedical sciences because of its collaborative, interdisciplinary approach.

Big things from small packages Nano-sized technology has super-sized effect on tumors April 2, 2008 -- Nanoparticles (yellow) show that a treated tumor (left) has less blood vessel growth than an untreated tumor. Anyone facing chemotherapy would welcome an advance promising to dramatically reduce their dose of these often harsh drugs. Using nanotechnology, researchers at the School of Medicine have taken a step closer to that goal. The researchers focused a powerful drug directly on tumors in rabbits using drug-coated nanoparticles.

Algorithm finds the network - for genes or the Internet Math tool finds genetic communities that lead to disease March 12, 2008 -- Human diseases and social networks seem to have little in common. However, at the crux of these two lies a network, communities within the network, and farther even, substructures of the communities. Weixiong Zhang, Ph.D., Washington University associate professor of computer science and engineering and of genetics, along with his Ph.D. student, Jianhua Ruan, has published an algorithm (a recipe of computer instructions) to automatically discover communities and their subtle structures in various networks.

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Faculty Experts:

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James G. Miller Albert Gordon Hill Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences Professor Miller's research focuses on the physics of anisotropic, inherently inhomogeneous media. These systematic studies of the anisotropic properties of the heart have led to fundamentally new insights. In 1998 the National Institutes of Health grant supporting this research was awarded MERIT status, ... Expertise: physics of anisotropic, inherently inhomogeneous media, anisotropic properties of the heart, diagnostic images of hearts, echocardiographic imagers Direct contact: (314) 935-6229 / james.g.miller@wustl.edu

Daniel Moran Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering Moran Daniel W. Moran, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, focuses his research on the areas of voluntary motor control. He also has a research interest in the areas of motor learning and neural plasticity. He is currently affiliated with the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for the Neural ... Expertise: biomedical engineering, voluntary motor control, motor cortical activity, motor learning, neural plasticity Direct contact: (314) 935-8836 / dmoran@biomed.wustl.edu

David Peters McDonnell Douglas Professor of Engineering David Peters Download David Peters is widely recognized as an expert in design and analysis of rotary-wing aircraft. His theory of dynamic inflow is the world standard for wake modeling in rotorcraft dynamics and simulation. His continuing research on rotorcraft modeling and analysis has led to the publication of more than ... Expertise: rotary-wing aircraft, helicopters, rotocraft dynamics, aeronautics, astronautics Media assistance: (314) 935-5272 / tony_fitzpatrick@wustl.edu

Joseph Ackerman William Greenleaf Eliot Professor of Physical Chemistry in Arts & Sciences Joseph Ackerman Download Joseph J. H. Ackerman, Ph.D. is William Greenleaf Eliot Professor of Chemistry and chair of the chemistry department. His work is concerned primarily with the development and application of magnetic resonance spectroscopic and imaging techniques for the study of functional biophysical and physiologic ... Expertise: magnetic resonance techniques, spectroscopic techniques, imaging techniques, functional biophysical, physiologic events, intact biological systems, isolated cell preparations, … Direct contact: (314) 935-6593 / ackerman @wuchem.wustl.edu

Larry Taber Professor of Biomedical Engineering Taber has been probing the forces, stresses and deformations of the heart since the mid-1980s. A major focus of his work is to show that biomechanical forces may be as important as genetics in shaping the heart. Recently, Taber has developed a theory on tissue growth and morphogenesis--shape change--and ... Expertise: biomechanics of cardiovascular development, heart, embryo, blood vessels Direct contact: (314) 935-8544 / lat@biomed.wustl.edu

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Related News Clips:

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Show More Clips

Group says it has mapped corn genome Associated Press and 76 others Feb. 26, 2008 -- Richard Wilson, director of WUSTL's Genome Sequencing Center, comments on the successful mapping of the corn genome.

Disabled gamers want more than 'fluffy' choices Chicago Tribune April 10, 2007 -- About 10 to 20 percent of the video gaming population is disabled, but they get little attention from the Nintendos, Sonys and Microsofts of the world. Now, academia is trying to show gamemakers that with a little thought and ingenuity, their titles can be played -- and purchased by -- gamers they have never courted before. A U. Illinois instructor is organizing a game design seminar to build a socially oriented video game for players with quadriplegia. She hopes such hands-on design work will encourage gamemakers to keep the disabled in mind while creating their titles -- and show them how. Perhaps the ultimate game controller operates on brain waves. A teenager being studied for epilepsy last fall at WUSTL was able to play "Space Invaders" using his thoughts. Those findings could lead one day to artificial limbs that respond to human thought.

Teenager moves video icons by imagination United Press International and 2 others Oct. 11, 2006 -- A U.S. boy has become the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game using only the signals from his brain to make movements. WUSTL researchers led by neurological surgery professor Eric Leuthardt and biomedical engineering professor Daniel Moran say the boy's achievement might lead to creation of biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, enabling the movement of a prosthesis by just thinking about it.

St. Louis waits for Bio-Belt to bloom Chicago Tribune and 12 others May 2, 2005 -- Article on the outlook for bioscience hotspots focuses on St. Louis. For years this fading industrial center has poured a fortune into the genetic engineering of plants, ignoring critics of the controversial technology and enduring a long stretch with little to show for its investment. Now, finally, St. Louis is starting to see a payoff, putting some welcome distance between itself and the many other cities trying to hit it big in biotech. Comments from John Biggs, Roger Beachy, Peter Raven, and WUSTL chancellor Mark Wrighton.

Brain Power: Mind Control of External Devices Associated Press Online, LiveScience.com (New York) and 25 others March 17, 2005 -- New coverage on this topic -- Researchers and volunteers around the world are taking early steps toward a complex but straightforward technological goal: to use electrical signals from the brain as instructions to computers and other machines, allowing paralyzed people to communicate, move around and control their environment literally without moving a muscle. Most dramatically, that could help "locked-in" patients - those who've lost all muscle movement because of conditions like Lou Gehrig's disease or brainstem strokes. Article mentions research at WUSTL, where surgeons placed tiny electrodes on the surface of the brains of four people recently, they achieved accuracies of 74 percent to 100 percent with just three to 24 minutes of training.

More News:

Biomedical engineer trips up proteins in nerve regeneration system
July 2002 - It's sticky, it's a gel, it comes in a tube, but this is no greasy kids' stuff. Rather, it's a novel delivery system for peripheral nerve regeneration that could have implications for successful stem cell delivery and spinal cord repair. Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, Ph.D.Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has designed a system that employs a nerve guide tube filled with a gel containing growth factor proteins that stimulate nerve regeneration. Also part of the package are strategically placed sugars and peptides for binding in the gel matrix. The system has promoted peripheral nerve regeneration in preliminary rat studies.