futurechallengesinbiomedicalengineering.docVIP

FUTURE CHALLENGES IN BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING A man with a new prosthetic arm can ‘feel’ things and thereby grip eggs without breaking them. His prosthesis has a computer in the forearm that is wired to a mechanical hand and to a plunger device on his chest. The hand sends signals up the wires to the plunger, which pushes the skin. That stimulates nerves in his chest, which have been rewired there from where they used to be in the upper arm, to transmit sensations to the brain as if the nerves were still connected to his real hand. This is just one example of the amazing progress that has been made in medical science over the last few decades. This progress has come hand in hand with technological advancements in electronic and mechanical engineering, computer science, and information and communication technologies (ICT). The blending of all these fields is biomedical engineering, the application of the principles of engineering to the solution of problems in biology and medicine. A biomedical engineer is positioned to work at the intersection of engineering, mathematics, physics, biology, and medicine to solve real world problems. Evidence of biomedical engineering can be found everywhere in modern medicine. Hospitals are full of devices, instruments and machines that have been designed and produced by engineers working in collaboration with doctors, nurses, biochemists, physicists, microbiologists and technicians. Examples range from the pumps that administer drugs to patients, to instruments that monitor heart rates and other vital functions, to complicated scanners that produce detailed three-dimensional images of internal body structures. Biomedical engineering devices are also involved in many kinds of treatments, including implanted pacemakers that maintain the function of the heart, artificial joints that replace those damaged by disease or injury, and synthetic blood vessels. Progress in biomedical engineering has never been more rapid and