Since Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA, the pace of scientific discovery in life sciences has grown exponentially. This is partly due to the amazing development of technologies, especially in the areas of data acquisition and data analysis.
The advent of microarray technologies, nanotechnology and DNA sequencing techniques have generated massive amounts of data, which would have taken lifetimes to be processed without the power of computers. It has been said that life sciences will be the most computer-intensive scientific field of the 21st century.
The challenges to analyze such data may be recent in the field of life sciences, but tools and solutions already existed in the fields of engineering, mathematics, statistics and computer science. Presented here is a small subset of examples that show how several engineering fields can come together to bring solutions for life sciences’ challenges.
By Rinaldo Cubeddu, Andrea Bassi, Daniela Comelli, Sergio Cova, Andrea Farina, Massimo Ghioni, Ivan Rech, Antonio Pifferi, Lorenzo Spinelli, Paola Taroni, Alessandro Torricelli, Alberto Tosi, Gianluca Valentini, and Franco Zappa
Many biological mechanisms are related to light interaction or can be evaluated through processes involving energy …
The National Cancer Institute’s plan to defeat cancer through engineered design.
By George W. Hinkal, Dorothy Farrell, Sara S. Hook, Nicholas J. Panaro, Krzysztof Ptak, and Piotr Grodzinski
Great strides have been made through biomedical research to alleviate the disease burden of many of the scourges of …
Researchers come up with a low-energy pulse sequence to restart hearts and make implants last longer
By Marisa Plumb
Watch any TV medical drama and you’ll see a defibrillator in action. During tense moments, defibrillators bring patients back from the brink of death with a dramatic shock. …
By Aya Caldwell, Anna Young, Jose Gomez-Marquez, and Kristian R. Olson
Global health development assistance has increased threefold in the last decade, and policymakers are recognizing the need for accessible health technologies aimed at low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)
With wearable technology at the center, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society 2011 Conference illustrates IEEE leadership in healthcare engineering
By: Jie Chen, Stephen Wong, Joseph Chang, Pau-Choo Chung, Huai Li, Ut-Va Koc, Fred W. Prior, and Robert Newcomb
Today, only a very small portion of engineers are actively engaged in biomedical research. Of these, only a rare few are funded by the National Institutes of …
By Tsong-Ho Wu, Ph.D., IEEE Fellow, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan
Concentric Tube Robots—a new robot technology that promises to revolutionize minimally invasive surgery.
Pierre Dupont, IEEE Fellow, is Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering at Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the Electronic Products and Services Board of the IEEE Robotics …
By Ilya Shmulevich
Richard Murray, California Institute of Technology, USA Reprinted from The Impact of Control Technology T. Samad and A.M. Annaswamy (eds.), IEEE Control Systems Society, 2011
Sponsoring Societies of Life Sciences
Supporting Societies
