An Overview of Biomedical Engineering

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An Overview of Biomedical Engineering
Murray Loew Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering George Washington University Washingto
n, DC 20052
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Biomedical Engineering

• Who?
• GW faculty, GW students
• What?
• Applying engineering to health care
• Why?
• Curiosity, satisfaction, contribution, jobs
• How?
• Research, design, clinical

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Who

• Zhenyu Guo Murray Loew

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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What

• Bioinstrumentation
• Biomaterials
• Biomechanics
• Biomedical computing signal processing
• Biomolecular engineering
• MEMS
• Minimally invasive surgery
• Tissue engineering, ...

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Major advances

• Hip joint replacement Heart pacemaker
• Magnetic resonance imaging
• Arthroscopy Heart-lung machine
• Angioplasty Bioengineered skin
• Timed-release drug capsules
• Artificial articulated joint
• Kidney dialysis

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Bioinstrumentation

• The application of electronics and measurement
  principles to develop devices used in diagnosis
  and treatment of disease.
• EXAMPLES are the electrocardiogram, cardiac
  pacemaker, blood pressure measurement, hemoglobin
  oxygen saturation, kidney dialysis, and
  ventilators.

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Biomaterials

• Describes both living tissue and materials used
  for implantation.
• Choose appropriate material
• Nontoxic, noncarcinogenic, chemically inert,
  stable, and mechanically strong enough to
  withstand the repeated forces of a lifetime.
• Metal alloys, ceramics, polymers, and composites

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Biomechanics

• Mechanics applied to biological or medical
  problems
• Study of motion, material deformation, flow
  within the body and in devices, and transport of
  chemicals across biological and synthetic media
  and membranes.
• EXAMPLES artificial heart and replacement heart
  valves, the artificial kidney, the artificial
  hip, function of organs

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Biomedical computing signal processing

• Computers are becoming increasingly important in
  medical signal processing, from the
  microprocessor used to do a variety of small
  tasks in a single-purpose instrument to the
  extensive computing power needed to process the
  large amount of information in a medical imaging
  system.

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Segmentation and labeling of electron microscope
images at GWU
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Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)

• Microtechology and micro scale phenomena is an
  emerging area of research in biomedical
  engineering
• Many of life's fundamental processes take place
  on the micro scale
• We can engineer systems at the cellular scale to
  provide new tools for the study of biological
  processes and miniaturization of many devices,
  instruments and processes

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MIT
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Minimally invasive medicine surgery

• Uses technology to reduce the debilitating nature
  of some medical treatments.
• Minimally invasive surgery using advanced imaging
  techniques that precisely locate and diagnose
  problems
• Virtual reality systems that immerse clinicians
  directly into the procedure reduce the
  invasiveness of surgical interventions.

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GWU
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Robarts Research Institute, U. of Western Ontario
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Rehabilitation engineering

• A new and growing specialty area of biomedical
  engineering
• Rehabilitation engineers expand capabilities and
  improve the quality of life for individuals with
  physical impairments.
• Because the products of their labor are often
  individualized, the engineer often works directly
  with the disabled individual

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Biosensors and electrodes

• Sense signals within the body as required for
  diagnosis
• These are used to measure the signals from the
  heart (electrocardiogram), lung (spirometer),
  blood (glucose sensor), vessels (blood flow) and
  body (temperature)

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Telemedicine

• Delivering health care at a distance
• Diagnosis
• Therapy
• Real-time consultation

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Tissue engineering

• The principles of engineering and life sciences
  are applied toward the generation of biological
  substitutes aimed at the creation, preservation
  or restoration of lost organ function. This field
  is dedicated to the creation of new functional
  tissue

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Biomedical Engineering Research at GW

• Elastography for breast cancer diagnosis
• Doppler signal processing in carotid plaque
  detection
• Multimodality medical image registration
• Task-based quality measurement of compressed
  medical images
• Impedance imaging sensor development
• Tissue characterization using fluorescence-lifetim
  e imaging

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Recent Accomplishments at GWU
Portable Doppler device
Catheterization simulation
New techniques for breast cancer diagnosis
Multimodality medical image registration
3D ultrasound imaging
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Why?

• challenge
• interdisciplinary
• results are visible and beneficial
• many kinds of jobs available

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National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and
Bioengineering

• Biomedical engineering integrates physical,
  chemical, mathematical, and computational
  sciences and engineering principles to study
  biology, medicine, behavior, and health. It
  advances fundamental concepts creates knowledge
  from the molecular to the organ systems levels
  and develops innovative biologics, materials,
  processes, implants, devices, and informatics
  approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, and
  treatment of disease, for patient rehabilitation,
  and for improving health

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The new GWU program

• New BME B.S. program coming in Fall '02!
  (pending Board of Trustees approval)
• Real experience at NIH, NRL, TIGR, ...
• Five areas of concentration bioinformatics,
  telemedicine, instrumentation, premed,
  biomechanics

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Curriculum

• 4 years
• 2 required summer experiences
• lab experience starting in freshman year,
  mentored by upperclassmen
• junior/senior design project
• interdisciplinary with Medical School, Science,
  and GW Hospital

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Curriculum Specialty Labs

• bioinformatics and computational modeling
• imaging and telemedicine
• telemedicine and instrumentation
• biotechnology, nanotechnology, and MEMS
• visualization and simulation
• movement and injury sciences

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Call, write or visit

• [phone]
• (loew, zguo) _at_ seas.gwu.edu
• Biomedical Engineering Program, Department of
  ECE, George Washington University, Washington, DC
  20052

Extending the reach of Biomedical Engineering at
GWU
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