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10.10

Biomedical Engineering Needs Substantial Funding Increase, According to IEEE EMBS President

By Barton Reppert

Substantially increased funding is needed for the United States to maintain its global leadership in biomedical engineering, according to the head of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS).

At the same time, Dr. Bin He says there continue to be promising prospects and career trends for American engineering students aiming to work as biomedical engineers.

Asked about the situation with funding available through the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. He said: “There are grant supports from NSF and NIH for biomedical engineering R&D, and as one of the grantees I appreciate all the funding support to my personal research from NSF and NIH. However, I think there is a strong need to increase substantially such funding in order to keep the U.S. leadership position in this fascinating field. Many other countries (e.g. European countries and China, to name just a few) are heavily investing in biomedical engineering R&D, and it is extremely important that the United States keep up with the pace of trends in the world.”

With regard to promising areas of study for engineering students interested in pursuing a career in biomedical engineering, the EMBS chief said: “There are many existing areas of study for engineering students who are interested in biomedical engineering, including neuroengineering, biomedical imaging, bioinformatics, tissue engineering etc. . . . The field of biomedical engineering has grown significantly in the past 20 years. So there has been a large demand for quality academic faculty in biomedical engineering. Similarly, there has been a significant increase in industrial jobs in the field.”

Dr. He, who is a professor of biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and neuroscience, and director of Biomedical Functional Imaging and Neuroengineering Laboratory at the University of Minnesota added: “Both NSF and NIH are funding education in the field, but again it is hoped that such funding support can be substantially increased. This is particularly important considering the global competition.”

An NSF official, Dr. Theresa Good, said it is difficult to estimate the overall level of funding for biomedical engineering because it is provided through several programs — including the Biotechnology Program (which funds tissue engineering and stem cell engineering work); the Biophotonics Program; the Biosensors Program; the Nano and Biomechanics Program; the Robust Intelligence and Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience Programs (both of which fund neural engineering efforts). Also, the Biomaterials Program funds a number of tissue engineering-associated activities. R&D such as cryopreservation of cells gets funded through the Thermal Transport Properties Program, while drug and gene delivery activities get funded through the Interfacial Processes and Thermodynamics Program.

Asked what she views as some of the most important challenges facing biomedical engineering are likely to be over the next 5 to 10 years, Dr. Good said: “Some big issues we will have to face are (1) how do we deal with all of the data, both in terms of how to organize and gain insight from it, and how to deal with privacy issues specifically associated with patient data; (2) how do we deal with ethical implications of the technologies developed, be it the stem cell area, in synthetic biology, or in neural-machine interfaces; and (3) who will support the continued growth in these fields.”

As for significant breakthroughs that have been achieved in biomedical engineering R&D over the past 20 years, Dr. Good said they have included:

In areas of stem cell and tissue engineering, advances using a combination of tools to examine how cells respond in response to environmental cues (chemical, electrical and mechanical), and from that making progress in controlling the development of engineered tissues (particularly engineered cardiac tissues).

Using tools from systems and synthetic biology, it is now possible to manipulate molecular events within cells and tissues such that fundamental issues in development can be probed. This insight can then be used to facilitate advances in regenerative medicine.

In areas of neural engineering, “there has been some exciting progress in the way we interface neural signals with robotics to make assistive devices.”

In biomedical imaging, “we can now detect changes in vivo at the cellular level, and can begin to look at molecular-level phenomena that are the basis of disease.”

In point-of-care diagnostics, “it is now possible to have simple devices that can be used to diagnose diseases such as HIV in remote locations such as Africa that are hardest hit by these diseases.”

Because of advances in bioinformatics, proteomics and genomics, “we are now developing systems where we can access molecular-level patient data from large populations and try to elucidate genomic and/or proteomic changes that are associated with prognosis or success with different types of treatment.”

With regard to areas of study she would recommend for students interested in pursuing a biomedical engineering career, Dr. Good responded: “I’m biased — since I am a chemical engineer. I think the interface between chemistry, biology and engineering, and the molecular and cellular level, is an exciting area to work — regardless of the application.”

Barton Reppert is an independent science and technology writer, mainly focusing on Washington coverage of S&T policy issues and developments. Previously he worked for 18 years as a reporter and editor with The Associated Press in Washington, New York and Moscow.

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.