An Overview of Biomedical Engineering

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

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

3. Who Zhenyu Guo Murray Loew Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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.

10. Segmentation and labeling of electron microscope images at GWU

11. 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

12. MIT

13. 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.

14. GWU

15. Robarts Research Institute, U. of Western Ontario

16. 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

17. 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)

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

19. 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

20. 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-lifetime imaging

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

22. Why? challenge interdisciplinary results are visible and beneficial many kinds of jobs available

23. 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

24. 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

25. Curriculum – Specialty Labs bioinformatics and computational modeling imaging and telemedicine telemedicine and instrumentation biotechnology, nanotechnology, and MEMS visualization and simulation movement and injury sciences

26. Call, write or visit: (202) 994-7180 (loew, zguo) @ seas.gwu.edu Biomedical Engineering Program, Department of ECE, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 Extending the reach of Biomedical Engineering at GWU