PRESENT AND FUTURE OF

BIOENGINEERING
CURRENT STATE AND
FUTURE EXPECTATIONS
• Bioengineering combines engineering, biology, and
medicine to improve human health through cross-
disciplinary activities that integrate the engineering
sciences with the biomedical sciences and clinical
practice.
• Bioengineers use their knowledge of science and math
to help solve health problems.
• The target of Bioengineering is Biological System
• The methods of bioengineering is Engineering
• The aims of BE are to Understand, Modify and Control
the living systems
• BE is application, not pure science and It is systematic.
Bio=life; Engineering=process to make technology
Technology=refers to any thing invented by human to search our wants and needs.
Bioengineering=making specific technological items that are used with or in living things.
Bioengineering Technology Examples
• Hearing aids
• Eye glasses
• Wheel Chair
• Laser eye surgery
• Heart pacemaker
The specialized subject for bioengineers
• Biomaterials
• Bioinstrumentation
• Cellular, tissue, and genetic engineering
• Biomechanics
• Systems Physiology
• Rehabilitation
• Medical imaging
Why Become a Bioengineer?
• Employment opportunities for bioengineers are expected to
grow faster than the average for all occupations through 2026.
(The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook)
• The aging of the population and the focus on health issues will
increase the demand for better medical devices and equipment
designed by bioengineers.
• For example, rehabilitation engineering is growing rapidly to
meet the increasing needs of aged patients and patients with
disabilities.
• Current advances in computer-assisted surgery and molecular,
cellular, and tissue engineering designed to minimize patients
hospitalization time also bosst the demand for bioengineers.
Who employes Bioengineers?
Manufacturing industries employed 38 percent of all
bioengineers, primarily in the
• pharmaceutical and
• medicine manufacturing and
• medical instruments and supplies industries.
Others were employed in
• universities,
• hospitals,
• research facilities of education and medical institutions,
• teaching,
• governmental regulatory agencies, or as
• independent consultant.
Career Outlook
• Biomedical engineering is expected to grow about seven
percent a year between 2016 and 2026. (U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics)
• This means the growth in biomedical engineering jobs
will be about as fast for the average growth of all
occupations.
• The aging of population along with a rapid increase in
technological advances are expected to contribute to the
growth of demand for professionals in this job category.
Salary
•The median annual salary for biomedical engineers
was $88,040 in 2017 in USA.
•Those in the lowest 10 percent earned less than
$52,070, while the highest 10 percent earned more
than $142,610.
•Median wages for those in private sector research
were more than $95,000,
while university workers in this area earned
considerably less, with a median wage of about
$62,000.
•A few degree programs use the term
"biomedical engineering" synonymously with
bioengineering.
•Other schools' biomedical engineering
programs emphasize applications in medicine
and health care, and reserve "bioengineering"
to emphasize non-medical applications, such as
artificial intelligence or agricultural
engineering.
•Despite differences in terminology and focus,
bioengineering is a rapidly growing academic
discipline across the United States and
Europe.
•Although bioengineering may encompass
many areas, one of its primary functions is to
develop better solutions for the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of disease; patient
rehabilitation; and to improve health
Bioengineering has been vital in developing:
•Artificial hips, knees and other joints
•Ultrasound, MRI and other medical imaging
techniques
•Engineered organisms for chemical and
pharmaceutical manufacturing
•Pacemakers, dialysis machines, and diagnostic
equipment
What Does a Bioengineering Major Do?
• Because bioengineering combines the two major disciplines of
biology and engineering, bioengineers have a wide variety of
career choices.
• Some graduates may work alongside medical practitioners,
developing new medical techniques, medical devices, and
instrumentation for manufacturing companies.
• Hospitals and clinics employ clinical engineers to maintain and
improve the technological support systems used for patient
care.
• Graduates with advanced bioengineering degrees perform
biological and medical research in educational and
governmental research laboratories.
• Bioengineering often applies traditional engineering
expertise to human applications in medicine.
• Many bioengineering professionals seek to help people
by solving complex problems in medicine and healthcare.
• Some bioengineering jobs combine several disciplines,
requiring a diverse array of skills.
• Digital hearing aids, implantable defibrillators, artificial
heart valves, and pacemakers are all bioengineering
products that help people combat disease and disability.
• Bioengineers develop advanced therapeutic and surgical
devices, such as a laser system for eye surgery and a
device that regulates automated delivery of insulin.
Bioengineering techniques have led to
major scientific breakthroughs, such
as:
•Ultrasound
•Computer-assisted tomography
•Magnetic resonance imaging
•Other medical imaging systems
Bioengineers conduct research in many areas.
• In genetics, for example, engineers try to detect, prevent, and treat
genetic diseases. (gene therapy, gene cloning/gene
transfer/recombinant DNA technology.)
• Sports medicine bioengineers develop rehabilitation and external
support devices.
• Medical research bioengineering specialists also examine rehabilitation
and assisted living techniques.
• In industry, bioengineers conduct research and create designs for a
more in-depth understanding of living systems and technology.
• Government researchers often work in product testing and safety,
where they establish safety standards for medical devices.
• A biomedical engineer employed in a hospital might advise on the
selection and use of medical equipment or supervise performance
testing and maintenance.
• Bioengineers design artificial joints, tissues and organs.
• They create artificial devices that substitute for missing
body parts, including hearing aids, cardiac pacemakers,
artificial kidneys and hearts, blood oxygenators,
synthetic blood vessels, joints, arms, and legs.
• The devices used by medical professionals to diagnose
and treat ilness are designed by bioengineers.
• Some examples of these innovative tools are the
computers that analyze blood, the laser systems used
during corrective eye surgeries, and medical imaging
devices such as MRI and CT scanners.
• Bioengineering is not confined to designing and producing medical
devices.
• It can include any situation in which technology interacts with a living
system.
• Because the discipline encompasses a broad range of knowledge, it is
vital that bioengineers be mentally flexible.
• They must be willing to experiment with techniques from other
industries and to work with people from other disciplines.
• Developing a kidney machine, for example, requires combining several
different engineering specialties.
• It incorporates water treatment and purification, heating and
temperature control, measurement systems for flow and pressure,
electrolytes, alarm systems for monitoring vital signs, data collection
and processing, ergonomics, and electrical safety.
Career Education in Bioengineering
• A core college curriculum in bioengineering is usually heavy in
math, physics, chemistry and biology.
• Other courses may include computer science and
communication classes.
• Bioengineering involves a great deal of interaction with other
professionals, and that requires communicating effectively.
• College degrees in bioengineering often emphasize particular
aspects of the biomedical industries, such as prosthetic devices
or medical instrumentation.
• Courses in chemical, electrical or mechanical engineering
constitute a major portion of the curriculum for many
bioengineering programs.
Is an Advanced Degree Necessary for a Bioengineering Career?
• Although entry-level positions for many engineering specialties
do not require a graduate degree, bioengineering is an
exception.
• The combination of knowledge in biology and engineering is
often more than can be taught in a single undergraduate
program.
• A master's degree is generally preferred.
• Doctorates are more typical for those who want to advance
into research, especially at a university. It's not uncommon for
students to earn their college degrees in a different
engineering specialty and then move into bioengineering later
when they pursue their master's degree or doctorate.
What Can You Do With a College Degree
in Bioengineering?
•Bioengineers can usually pursue job positions
in hospitals, universities, industry or research
laboratories.
•They can be employed by medical device
manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies,
regulatory agencies and medical research
institutions.
The Biomedical Engineering Society has developed a list of some specialty areas
in bioengineering, including:
• Bioinstrumentation, which applies electronics and measurement techniques to
create devices used in diagnosis and treatment of disease.
• Biomaterials, involving living tissue and artificial materials that are implanted in
individuals. This specialty requires a deep understanding of living material.
• Classical mechanics, such as statics, dynamics, fluids, solids, thermodynamics,
and continuum mechanics, which are applied to solve medical problems through
biomechanics.
• Developments in this area have led to the artificial heart and valves, artificial joint
replacements, bone cartilage, and tendons of the musculoskeletal system.
• Cellular, tissue and genetic engineering, using the anatomy, biochemistry and
mechanics of cellular and sub-cellular structures to attack biomedical problems at
the microscopic level.
• Clinical engineering, involving the development and maintenance of
computer databases of medical instrumentation and equipment records.
Clinical engineers often work with physicians to apply technology to a
specific healthcare system.
• Medical imaging, which generates an image for physicians that can be used
in diagnosis or patient treatment.
• Orthopedic bioengineering, examining the friction, lubrication and wear
characteristics of natural and artificial joints. Orthopedic engineers perform
stress analysis of the musculoskeletal system, and develop artificial
biomaterials for replacement.
• Rehabilitation engineering, a growing specialty whose function is to
enhance the capabilities and improve the quality of life for people with
physical and cognitive impairments.
• This niche includes prosthetics, the development of home, workplace and
transportation modifications, and the design of technology to enhance
seating, positioning, mobility, and communication.
• Systems physiology, involving the engineering strategies,
techniques, and tools needed to understand the function of all
living organisms, from bacteria to humans.
• Consulting. This career choice is particularly inviting for
someone who prefers variety in work assignments.
Besides solid credentials in the field, consulting also requires
some business and entrepreneurial expertise and substantial
communication skills.
• Teaching. The growing number of bioengineering degree
programs has increased the need for college-level instructors.
Teaching bioengineering at the university level, however, is likely
to require a doctoral degree along with professional experience.
Fields of specialization within bioengineering include:
• Bioinformatics
• Bioinstrumentation
• Biomaterials
• Biomechanics
• Biomedical devices
• Bio-Micro/Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems
• Cellular, tissue and molecular engineering
• Clinical engineering
• Medical imaging
• Molecular imaging
• Rehabilitation engineering
INTERESTING TOPICS IN BIOENGINEERING
• Microalgal bioengineering for sustainable energy development: Recent transgenesis
and metabolic engineering strategies
• Recent Development of Anaerobic Digestion Processes for Energy Recovery from
Wastes
-Hydrogen-methane production from organic wastewater.
• Bioengineering Approaches to Controlled Protein Delivery
• Printing Human Organs with Biomaterials
• Fighting Obesity with a Drug-delivery Patch
• Keeping Cool with Bioengineered Clothing
• Controlling a Prosthesis With One’s Brain
• Fighting Disease with Nanorobots
• Bionic Arm
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIUfHBhnjB0&feature=youtu.be
• https://www.embs.org/about-biomedical-engineering/our-physician-
members/advances-in-biomedical-engineering/
Biomedical Engineering Trends
Robotics in surgery and rehabilitation
• Surgery can be stressful for both patients and those performing it. Human
error and fatigue can create costly mistakes that present fatal dangers. In
surgery, where precision is vital, robots can help. An exemplary robotic
surgical system, da Vinci, is controlled by a human surgeon but utilizes
robotic mechanics to make tiny precise movements inside the body.
• Robots are also helping with rehabilitation and therapy. Patients with limb
motor dysfunction caused by issues like stroke, brain injury or multiple
sclerosis can get limb-reaching training from robotic systems. Walking-
assistive robots can help the elderly improve their mobility. The
development of electronic skin, which makes robots more sensitive to how
they physically interact with people, has also been used to make prosthetic
limbs for humans feel more life-like.
Technological Medicine and Smart Drugs
• Medicine helps alleviate medical issues, but only when you remember
to take it. Smart drug technology is already available to help with
exactly that.
• In 2017, a smart pill was introduced that alerts patients via an iPad that
it's time to take the medicine. If a patch the patient wears on the
abdomen fails to pick up a signal that the pill has been taken, the
patient receives an alert.
• Another new smart pill is currently in development that can be used to
diagnose and treat disease, as it is trackable on its journey throughout
the body. This microdevice could monitor brain, blood and
gastrointestinal tract activity, measuring factors like temperature and
pH levels and delivering that information to doctors.
Cloud Computing, Big Data and the Internet of Things
• Data gathered from channels including imaging, pathology, genomics
and electrophysiology can be used to gain deeper insights into
diseases. Harnessing data allows biomedical researchers to identify
trends and improve healthcare decisions. Several big data healthcare
applications in the biomedical field, such as Hadoop and MapReduce,
can be used to synthesize large amounts of data and derive actionable
insights based on trends.
• Big data can also be applied to wearable devices and Internet of Things
(IoT) products to make them work more intelligently for the user.
• One such biomedical development currently in the works is the
creation of IoT solutions that will incorporate surgical data for training
and feedback purposes to improve surgical mastery for surgeons in
residency.
Medical Virtual Reality
• Although we think of virtual reality as an application best suited for
video games, it is also being implemented in areas as diverse as clinical
skills training, physical rehabilitation and mental health.
• Biomedical engineers are working on creating realistic virtual reality
environments to help patients recover from post-traumatic stress
disorder, to prepare surgeons for difficult surgeries and to promote
relaxation in patients before anxiety-causing medical procedures.
• Virtual reality also helps patients speed up recovery time for physical
ailments. For example, a program called MindMotionPro allows
patients with traumatized nervous systems to practice limb movement
in a virtual environment. Real-time multisensory feedback allows
patients to monitor their performance so that they can strive to
improve.
Neural Technology and Brain Tools
• The brain is the body's most complex organ and powers bodily functions, so it's
understandably one of the most researched topics in biomedical engineering.
Neural technology has major implications for overall health.
• Developments like implantable devices give greater insight into neurological
functioning and disease. Brain-machine interfacing, where electrical impulses
from the brain control a connected machine, has been used to develop a “bionic
arm.” The LUKE Arm from Mobius Bionics is one such machine and provides
gripping capabilities.
• In addition to giving patients more power, neural technology developments by
biomedical engineers can also help prevent health crises before they occur.
• For example, the NeuroPace RNS System is a medical device that detects brain
activity to normalize brainwaves before the onset of a seizure. Another exciting
biomedical engineering development in neural technology is a vision-restoration
prosthesis that can restore sight to someone who is blind.