Category Archives: BioEngineering

Climate scientists have been drawing red lines in the sand for some time, pointing out various thresholds we dare not cross for fear of doing irreparable damage to the planet and our future on it. And yet we continue to do not enough, and one by one those milestones are falling behind us. Few experts now believe we'll be able to avoid warming the earth past the 1.5C increase that's expected to signify irreversible catastrophe. To the horror of experts who have been desperately trying to get our attention in the hopes that we may still have time to change our ways, more and more scientists are switching to Plan B. Their attitude is essentially, "Okay, the battle may already be lost. Let's see if we can geoengineer our way out of this mess." And now researchers at Harvard are about to begin the largest geoengineering experiment ever, a $20 million project to see if they can simulate the cooling effects of a natural volcano in the atmosphere. There are basically two objections to bioengineering experiments like this. First is that they take scarce financial resources away from clean energy research and other projects to mitigate the damage we're doing. … Continue reading →

Tyler Bylsma 17 was playing on both the offensive and defensive lines on the Calvin High School varsity football team when the most unfortunate of circumstances altered the course of his life. During a game in his junior year, Bylsma broke his wrist. The injury ended both his football and wrestling seasons that year but it also spurred a medical journey that has inspired him to this day. In the days following his injury, Bylsma got an MRI, underwent ultrasound therapy and eventually needed surgery to implant screws into his wrist. Going through all of that got me interested in the medical field and how machinery can diagnose and heal people, Bylsma said. Thats what got me interested in Biomedical Engineering. Bylsma was healed and ready to wrestle and play football in his senior year of high school but his experiences from the previous year helped guide his decision to pursue engineering in college. I had two cousins who graduated from Kettering and they both work at General Motors right now. One of them really convinced me that I should go to Kettering because of the co-op experience, Bylsma said. Im getting real world experience and thats the thing that … Continue reading →

Everyone knows that eating vegetables is great for maintaining heart health, but what about using leafy greens to create part of a human heart? Although the research is still in its infancy, a group of scientists from Massachusettss Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has been able to successfully grow heart tissue on the leaves of spinach with the aim of one day being able to use the plant to replace diseased tissue in human hearts, such as those affected by a heart attack. In a study published online ahead of its release in next months journal Biomaterials, senior author and bioengineering professor Glenn Gaudette and his team at WPI report being able to grow human heart cells that could contract or beat after five days for a total of 21 days straight. With a chronic shortage of donor organs, researchers have resorted to engineering large-scale human tissue using techniques such as 3-D printing. One complex problem that has impeded this research, however, is how to recreate a small, intricate vascular system in order to deliver oxygen and nutrients required for proper tissue growth. One of the big problems in tissue engineering today is getting blood supply to the newly-created tissue, Gaudette … Continue reading →

Srivatsan Uchani, Staff Reporter March 24, 2017 Filed under News Share on Facebook Share via Email Some people usually dont see biology and physics as having many inherent similarities. Herbert Levine, physicist and professor of bioengineering at Rice University, seeks to challenge that view. In a talk on March 8 at the Euclid Tavern, Levine described in detail the ways in which computational modeling can be used to develop a detailed understanding and appreciation of the mechanics underlying cell movement. In his estimation, his work in this area is a key example of how physics can profoundly inform and enhance our knowledge of biology. The talk was called Cells that Figure out Where to Go: Smart Behavior from Amoebae to our Immune System, and dealt with the methods employed by cells of varying degrees of complexity to ensure accurate navigation. According to Levine, organisms such as amoebae and white blood cells can be broadly grouped together when it comes to motion. This is because they both rely on the same general mechanisms in order to move to target locations within their respective environments. Cells figure out where to go by using primitive senses, mostly smelldetecting chemicalsand touchdetecting the hardness of … Continue reading →

Newswise By the time someone realizes they damaged a ligament, tendon or cartilage from too much exercise or other types of physical activity, its too late. The tissue is stretched and torn and the person is writhing in pain. But a team of researchers led by University of Utah bioengineering professors Jeffrey Weiss and Michael Yu has discovered that damage to collagen, the main building block of all human tissue, can occur much earlier at a molecular level from too much physical stress, alerting doctors and scientists that a patient is on the path to major tissue damage and pain. This could be especially helpful for some who want to know earlier if they are developing diseases such as arthritis or for athletes who want to know if repeated stress on their bodies is taking a toll. The scientific value of this is high because collagen is everywhere, Yu says. When we are talking about this mechanical damage, were talking about cartilage and tendons and even heart valves that move all the time. There are so many tissues which involve collagen that can go bad mechanically. This issue is important for understanding many injuries and diseases. The teams research, funded … Continue reading →

Researchers at UCLA have developed an improved method to detect the presence of DNA biomarkers of disease that is compatible with use outside of a hospital or lab setting. The new technique leverages the sensors and optics of cellphones to read light produced by a new detector dye mixture that reports the presence of DNA molecules with a signal that is more than 10-times brighter. Nucleic acids, such as DNA or RNA, are used in tests for infectious diseases, genetic disorders, cancer mutations that can be targeted by specific drugs, and fetal abnormality tests. The samples used in standard diagnostic tests typically contain only tiny amounts of a diseases related nucleic acids. To assist optical detection, clinicians amplify the number of nucleic acids making them easier to find with the fluorescent dyes. Both the amplification and the optical detection steps have in the past required costly and bulky equipment, largely limiting their use to laboratories. In a studypublished onlinein the journal ACS Nano, researchers from three UCLA entities the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the California NanoSystems Institute, and the David Geffen School of Medicine showed how to take detection out of the lab and for a … Continue reading →

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers from the University of California Los Angeles showed that they could detect the presence of DNA molecules using a new dye mixture and the sensors and optics of cellphones. The new system reads light created by the detector dye mixture, with a 10-times brighter signal, at a fraction of the cost of traditional laboratory equipment. Typical diagnostic tests, such as ones for infectious diseases and genetic disorders, rely on amplifying the number of disease related nucleic acids like DNA or RNA with fluorescent dyes. However, intercalator dyes, as they are called, which are small changes in light emitted from molecules that associate with DNA, are too subtle and unstable for regular cellphone camera sensors. To address the problem, researchers including Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellors Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering, and Dino Di Carlo, professor of bioengineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering, found that by including a chemical additive they could stabilize the intercalator dyes and significantly increase the fluorescent signal above the background light level. This made it possible to incorporate the test with inexpensive cellphone based detection methods. The new system was used in a process called loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), with DNA from … Continue reading →

Supplied Content (Edited) Auckland, March 20, 2017 The Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) of the University of Auckland hopes to develop new international strategic partnerships and investor opportunities for medical technology (medtech). The Institutes Strategic Partnership Specialist Dr Diana Siew said that she would focus on promoting Medtech Core and Consortium for Medical Device Technologies (CMDT), the latter founded by her with ABI Director Distinguished Professor Peter Hunter to reduce the isolation of medical technology research institutions in New Zealand. CMDT is a partnership led of the University of Auckland with the Canterbury University, Otago University, Auckland University of Technology, Victoria University of Wellington and Callaghan Innovation. High Achiever ABI announced today the appointment of Dr Siew as its Strategic Partnership Specialist, stating that she has a strong innovation, research management and relationship management background in New Zealands medical technology sector. She will continue in her role as the Co-Chair of CMDT and Associate Director of Medtech Core. She is an alumnus of the University of Auckland with a doctorate in Chemistry with several years of experience in New Zealands Medtech environment, including previous roles with Industrial Research Ltd and Callaghan Innovation. Feedback from multinationals was that they found it hard … Continue reading →

Researchers at UCLA have developed an improved method to detect the presence of DNA biomarkers of disease that is compatible with use outside of a hospital or lab setting. The new technique leverages the sensors and optics of cellphones to read light produced by a new detector dye mixture that reports the presence of DNA molecules with a signal that is more than 10-times brighter. Nucleic acids, such as DNA or RNA, are used in tests for infectious diseases, genetic disorders, cancer mutations that can be targeted by specific drugs, and fetal abnormality tests. The samples used in standard diagnostic tests typically contain only tiny amounts of a diseases related nucleic acids. To assist optical detection, clinicians amplify the number of nucleic acids making them easier to find with the fluorescent dyes. Both the amplification and the optical detection steps have in the past required costly and bulky equipment, largely limiting their use to laboratories. In a study published onlinein the journal ACS Nano, researchers from three UCLA entities the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the California NanoSystems Institute, and the David Geffen School of Medicine showed how to take detection out of the lab and for … Continue reading →

Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image of individual nanowires and groups of nanowires. Each wire can produce an electric current when hit by light. A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and La Jolla-based startup Nanovision Biosciences Inc. have developed the nanotechnology and wireless electronics for a new type of retinal prosthesis that brings research a step closer to restoring the ability of neurons in the retina to respond to light. The researchers demonstrated this response to light in a rat retina interfacing with a prototype of the device in vitro. They detail their work in a recent issue of the Journal of Neural Engineering. The technology could help tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from neurodegenerative diseases that affect eyesight, including macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and loss of vision due to diabetes. Despite tremendous advances in the development of retinal prostheses over the past two decades, the performance of devices currently on the market to help the blind regain functional vision is still severely limited -well under the acuity threshold of 20/200 that defines legal blindness. Read howstem cell transplants have restored vision We want to create a new class of devices with drastically improved … Continue reading →