Category Archives: BioEngineering

Bionic arm to be developed under NZ-Germany collaboration Scientists from the University of Aucklands Bioengineering Institute (ABI) are collaborating with the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany to create human exoskeletons that will reduce workplace injury and assist stroke patients. Scientists from the University of Aucklands Bioengineering Institute (ABI) are collaborating with the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany to create human exoskeletons that will reduce workplace injury and assist stroke patients. The BIONIC JOINT is a project that will integrate the latest wearable sensor technology from the University of Auckland with mechanisms that enable movement provided by researchers at Franhofer IPA. A Memorandum of Understanding on the project will be signed today at the University of Aucklands city campus and representatives from Franhofer IPA. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also visiting the University today. The device will sense and assist movements of the arm and could be used to help lift heavy objects or perform repetitive tasks. In this way it could help to reduce the risk of injury for people doing a lot of manual lifting. Stroke sufferers who need assistance to move in a smooth and coordinated manner could also use the device and it would improve their motion … Continue reading →

Vaccine technology being developed at The University of Queensland could hold the key to completely eradicating polioby removing live virus from the vaccine production process. A polio inoculation in use since the 1950s has all-but eradicatedthe crippling disease in the developed world, but wild polio strains are running rampant in some poorer countries. The World Health Organisation has described the current polio situation in developing countries is an emergency. Researcher Dr Natalie Connors visited the WHO in Geneva last month to brief researchers on the modular virus-like particles her team is developing at UQs Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. These particles resemble viruses but they are not infectious and only use the safe part of the virus, Dr Connors said. They are made by producing protein, not the virus. However, being a good mimic of the infectious virus, they raise an excellent immune response. Dr Connors uses computational modelling and simulation to predict the best design of virus-like particles to obtain the optimal immune response. There is no cure for polio. It can only be prevented, she said. This is why polio vaccination is so important, and why developing a polio virus-like particle vaccine would be the final step … Continue reading →

Thoughts control a near-infrared LED, which starts the production of a molecule in a reaction chamber.Martin Fussenegger / ETH Zurich Scientists have tapped into human brainwaves to control a gene network involved in production of proteins. By transferring thoughts wirelessly, ETH bioengineers could manipulate the gene expression for proteins. The novel gene regulation by thought-controlcould lead to implants that combat neurological diseases, like chronic headaches, back pain and epilepsy, by detecting specific brainwaves at an early stage and triggering production of alleviating agents at the right time. Marc Folcher and other researchers from the group led by Martin Fussenegger, Professor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering at the Department of Biosystems (D-BSSE) in Basel used an EEH headset to record brain waves. These were analysed and transmitted via Bluetooth to a controller that switches on the current to an implant. The implant emits LED light in the near infrared range to illuminate a culture of genetically modified cells and trigger them to produce a desired protein. The bioengineers have presented their findings in the journal Nature Communications. The implant was initially tested in cell cultures and mice, and controlled by the thoughts of various test subjects. The researchers used SEAP, an easy-to-detect … Continue reading →

Women, Bioengineering, Corporations and the State Women, Bioengineering, Corporations and the State Noam Chomsky Various Artists 2001 AK Press Released on: 2001-01-01 Auto-generated by YouTube. By: Various Artists - Topic … Continue reading →

Irvine, CA (PRWEB) November 11, 2014 Rice Universitys Department of Bioengineering on October 31, 2014 announced that Amaan Mazhar, Ph.D. was one of three recipients of its Alumni of Year Award. This prestigious award is given to Rice Universitys bioengineering alumni who have made significant and meaningful contributions to the field of bioengineering. Dr. Mazhar is currently the Director of Research and Development for Modulated Imaging, Inc. (MI Inc.), which was founded to commercialize breakthrough technologies created at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California Irvine. Dr. Mazhar has co-authored twenty peer-reviewed journal articles and is a co-inventor on two patents relating to MI Inc.s Spatial Frequency Domain Imaging (SFDI) for medical diagnostics and other applications. SFDI is a next generation tissue imaging technology that uses visible and near-infrared light to measure blood, oxygen, melanin and other chromophores in tissue, and image many sub-dermal structures. Unlike legacy imaging systems that use potentially harmful radiation or strong magnetic fields, SFDI uses only safe visible light. Commenting on the award David Cuccia Ph.D. and CEO of MI Inc. stated, Without Dr. Mazhars years of cutting edge research and perseverance our SFDI system would not have achieved its success or have … Continue reading →

Like Matthew McConaughey at the Oscars and in true Hollywood fashion, the All Right? campaign cleaned up at this years Quality Improvement and Innovation Awards last week. The wellbeing initiative, run in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation, took out one of two Supreme Awards, plus the Improved Health and Equity for all Populations Award and the Consumer Council Award. Sue Turner, All Right? manager says the All Right? Team was humbled to receive all three awards at the ceremony. "It is a great boost to have our work recognised in this way," Sue says. "This project has been very much a collaborative affair from its inception." Sue says the project, a partnership with the Mental Health Foundation, has received great support from a range of organisations including the Red Cross and SKIP. She says staff from right across the Canterbury DHB have also been instrumental in the campaigns success. "The focus of the campaign has been to put people at the centre of the recovery and support the wellbeing of Cantabrians post quakes. We are delighted to have the campaign honoured in this way." The other big winners is the Medical Physics and Bioengineering (MPBE) team who combined with … Continue reading →

This MIT research team created the world's first mint- and banana-scented E. coli bacteria. Stephen Payne (from left), Boyuan Zhu, Tom Knight, Reshma Shetty, Andre Green, Veena Venkatachalam, Samantha Sutton, Jason Kelly, Austin Che, Barry Canton, Kate Broadbent. Heather A. Thomson hide caption This MIT research team created the world's first mint- and banana-scented E. coli bacteria. Stephen Payne (from left), Boyuan Zhu, Tom Knight, Reshma Shetty, Andre Green, Veena Venkatachalam, Samantha Sutton, Jason Kelly, Austin Che, Barry Canton, Kate Broadbent. The Radio Lab program includes a celebration of bioengineering from one of the world's most famous and lauded scientists, physicist Freeman Dyson, speaking at the University of Michigan. With tongues very much in cheeks, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich asked Josh Kurz and Shane Winter to compose an anthem to go along with Dr. Dyson's dream-like rhetoric. The result is a musical salute, "We Are Bioengineers," music by Shane, lyrics (and singing) by Josh and their Mammalian Pituitary Band (Jason Major, Wendy Roderweiss, vocals; Natasha Bayus on french horn). If there were a Grammy in the Science Marching Band category, they would all of them be kings. Engineers build bridges, buildings, roads, structures that shelter us and help us … Continue reading →

URBANA Two competing proposals to bridge engineering and medicine at the University of Illinois were reviewed by a committee of UI trustees Tuesday, and one thing was clear: they want more information. Members of the board's University Healthcare System Committee agreed that President Bob Easter should explore the ramifications of creating a separate medical school at the Urbana campus, as well as a counterproposal from the existing College of Medicine at the UI Chicago, and return to the full board in March with a recommendation on how to proceed. A resolution to that effect will be placed on the board's Nov. 13 agenda. "There are some real questions about what is the best way forward," Easter told committee members Monday. "I think we need to come to grips with the idea." Chancellor Phyllis Wise, speaking remotely from Taiwan, presented the 10-year financial plan for the proposed Urbana-based college of medicine, which calls for no state funding, at least $1.4 million from the campus, more than $100 million from Carle Health System and $135 million from donors over 10 years. The college, to open in 2017, would fuse medical training with engineering, computer science and technology to train physician-scientists who could … Continue reading →

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 4-Nov-2014 Contact: Herb Booth hbooth@uta.edu 817-272-7075 University of Texas at Arlington @utarlington A UT Arlington bioengineering professor is using tissue-engineered artificial lymph nodes to attract prostate cancer cells to better target and eradicate the disease. Liping Tang, bioengineering professor and interim chair of the Bioengineering Department, has received a $533,650 U.S. Army grant to build the lymph nodes that attract the cancer cells. "The tissue-engineered lymph nodes can be made to resemble what the cancer will look like after it spreads to other sites," Tang said. "When prostate cancer metastasizes, that's when it becomes dangerous and deadly. This research tries to stop the cancer before it spreads. We attract the cancer with these decoys. Then, when it's trapped, we can use a more targeted radiation." Tang said his team has built the artificial lymph nodes out of biodegradable polymers. "Through the attraction of these prostate cancer cells, we can then identify the way the cancer moves," Tang said. "These artificial lymph nodes will then become an important tool in identifying the critical biological signals that help the cancer migrate throughout the body." Eventually, Tang believes his research will allow patients to live longer cancer-free. He said the … Continue reading →

Before Google started work on a pill that aims to detect cancers and other diseases by sending magnetic nanoparticles into your bloodstream, it talked to Sam Gambhir. Gambhir is a professor of radiology, bioengineering, and materials science at Stanford University and the director of the universitys Canary Center for Cancer Early Detectiona researcher at the forefront of a movement that seeks to identify cancers far sooner than we do today. Googlers Andrew Conrad and Vik Bajaj approached him about a year and a half ago, not long after the company hired Conrad to oversee a new health sciences effort inside Google X, its moonshot research lab. Basically, Gambhir says, they wanted recommendations on what moonshots they should try for. And as Google built up its health operations, he continued to consult with the company and the health sciences lab it now runs in Silicon Valley. One of the projects Google eventually settled on was what Conrad calls the Nanoparticle Platform, an effort to build a cancer-detecting pill, publicly revealed last week. The idea is that this pill will contain magnetic nanoparticles that can latch onto certain cancer-related molecules in the bloodstreamand that a wearable device could then use magnetic properties … Continue reading →