In early September—when the rains from Hurricane Harvey finally subsided in Houston, Texas—Seth Pedersen loaded up his pickup truck with sample collection kits, waders, rubber boots, buckets, and a small aluminum fishing boat. Pedersen, a second year graduate student in environmental engineering at Rice University, was on a mission to test the water in homes flooded by Hurricane Harvey.... Read more
September/October 2017

Awards Presented for Innovative Pediatric Medical Devices
The “Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!” competition is sponsored by the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), a FDA-funded consortium led by Children’s National and the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. Four companies were awarded US$5... Read more

Reading Minds
When you see or think about an object, your brain engages in a unique pattern of activity tied specifically to that object. That’s how you know a cat is a cat, and not a dog or a house or a cloud.... Read more

Cross-Disciplinary Medical Advances with Neuroengineering
Neuroengineering brings tools and techniques from the engineering fields into neuroscience to create new approaches for investigating the central nervous system (CNS). This fusion of disciplines is advancing our kno... Read more

Moving Objects with Your Mind
The best ideas are often simple in nature, though complex in detail, and great in potential. The stentrode is a perfect example, combining the familiar off-the-shelf technologies of a stent and an electrode.... Read more

On the Verge of Neuro-Motion
Chad Bouton, director of the Center for Bioelectronic Medicine and vice president of advanced engineering at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, which serves as the research arm of one of the largest healt... Read more

Roach Biobots
Imagine a natural disaster, such as an earthquake, causing residential buildings to collapse and trapping the people in- side underneath the rubble. Over the following days, first responders spend a significant amou... Read more

From Brain to Body
Paralysis, whether caused by spinal cord injury, neurodegenerative disease, or other factors, poses a host of issues for patients. These include not just the inability to move parts of their bodies but potential pro... Read more

Digital Magnifying Glasses for Low-Vision Learners
A student squinting to see the board or holding a textbook inches from his or her nose often provides the first indication of a visual impairment.... Read more

Realizing a Clearer View
New augmented reality systems provide medical students with a surgeon’s sight.... Read more

Fertile Ground
Work at MIT’s Center for Gynepathology Research is revealing how tissue engineering can help address gynecological disorders.... Read more
Editorial Blogs
Pick
Three Outstanding Women in Science
This article considers three examples of amazing women who reached the highest intellectual levels, suffered tremendousl...
Our Next Generation’s Reflections of EMBC’17
EMBC student members discuss their experiences at EMBC'17, which took place in July on Jeju Island, South Korea.... Read more
Exciting Times
What an exciting time to be a bio-based engineer! Biology is the new frontier of technological progress, and it is difficult to fathom how much is going on.... Read more
Tradeoffs in Capstone Design Courses Involving More Than One Discipline
According to a 2015 survey, 5% of capstone design course instructors indicated that their courses involve students from more than one engineering discipline. Students in these courses may hear presentations on topics of common interest and work together on project teams that require knowledge and skills from more than one discipline.... Read more
Practicing Medicine in Three Dimensions
Review of 3D Printing in Medicine from Elsevier Press, 2017. This heavily referenced text is a recommended read for anyone wishing to get up to speed in the area of 3D printing applications in the field of medicine.... Read more