Category Archives: BioEngineering

Parliaments steering committee approved representatives for the College of Engineering and the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts, which went unfilled after the Spring TSG elections.

by Amanda Lien 03 August 2017

Junior bioengineering major Neil Chada (left) and sophomore musical theater major Doreen Nguyen were approved to fill vacant seats in Temple Student Government's Parliament. COURTESY NEIL CHADA AND DOREEN NGUYEN

Temple Student Governments steering committee voted Monday to approve candidates for two vacant Parliament seats.

Parliamentarian Jacob Kurtz appointed junior bioengineering major Neil Chada for the College of Engineering seat and sophomore musical theater major Doreen Nguyen for the School of Theater, Film and Media Arts seat in late June.

Chada and Nguyen sent their resumes and statements of interest to members of the steering committee, who began questioning them via email in early July. Questioning ended in mid-July, but a vote was not taken until the end of the month.

According to the TSG Constitution, both candidates need to be approved by the steering committee in a simple majority vote. Both candidates were approved 7-1.

The steering committee, which is made up of the Speaker and the committee heads, is responsible for setting the Parliament agenda and approving new appointments to Parliament. A new steering committee has not been established by the current Parliament but members of the former steering committee retain emeritus membership status, which allows them to vote on new appointments to Parliament until a new steering committee can be established.

The current steering committee is made up of the former Speaker and the seven former committee chairs.

Chada said that his goal is to get engineering students talking about TSG as a place to bring comments and concerns since he feels like TSG was lacking representation from the College of Engineering last year.

A lot of times, the people in engineering get carried away with what theyre doing and everyone feels like no one has an avenue where they can project their voices, he said. My primary focus is to streamline that and make it accessible to everyone.

Outreach to the academic advising office and faculty are among his top priorities as a representative, he added.

Nguyen said she hopes to ensure that her school has more of a voice in TSG by talking to large classes and using her positions as a peer adviser and resident assistant to hear different concerns.

A lot of people [in TFMA] dont feel as represented on TSG, she said. I want to be that person they can go to with concerns that I can bring up to the entire student government.

After this vote, there are still three vacant Parliament seats: Boyer College of Music and Dance, Transfer Students and Graduate/Fifth Year Plus. The primary focus within Parliament is training the existing Parliament representatives, Kurtz said, adding that once that is completed he will work with the Elections Commissioner to try to fill the seats.

Two freshman class representatives, the RHA representative and the Greek life representative will be elected at the beginning of the fall semester.

Amanda Lien can be reached at amanda.lien@temple.edu.

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TSG: Two vacant Parliament seats filled after committee approval - Temple News

NSF Honorees Are Devoted to Improving Our World

Four Bioengineering students have been chosen this year for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program by the National Science Foundation. The program provides three years of financial support for graduate studies.

Researchers at the Texas Biomedical Device Center have been awarded a contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to investigate a novel approach to accelerate the learning of foreign languages.

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Dr. Robert Gregg has devoted years of research to helping lower-limb amputees and stroke survivors walk again. A new grant from the National Science Foundation has given that effort a significant boost.

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We actively pursue research that leads to tech and knowledge transfer, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Bioengineering Department at UT Dallas offers an undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering and graduate degrees in biomedical engineering as part of collaboration with The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

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With access to advanced technology, highly trained engineers, and clinicians and practitioners in the field; we provide a unique environment that cultivates creativity. Learn More

Our faculty work in a range of disciplines and conduct groundbreaking research; as leaders in their fields, they provide students with a myriad of opportunities Learn More

The $108 million, 220,000-square-foot Bioengineering and Sciences Building recently opened and houses state-of-the-art equipment and facilities for conducting cutting-edge research. Learn More

Our bioengineers work at the intersection of engineering and the life sciences, developing new technologies that improve peoples health and well-being. Learn More

We have incorporated hands-on learning opportunities into our curriculum. Each semester, students are presented with engineering problems and are given the training and guidance needed to create highly technical solutions to these problems. Students are trained on the use of advanced bench top engineering equipment from network analyzers, digital oscilloscopes, and function generators so they can design, test and build medical devices.

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Students graduate from our program able to successfully navigate medical school or as competent engineers able to develop medical devices.

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Department of Bioengineering - Erik Jonsson School of ...

A laboratory technique called optogenetics has emerged as one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs in recent history. Optogenetics involves the control of cells using light. When applied to neurons, this tool has the potential to cure blindness, treat Parkinsons disease, and relieve chronic pain.

Optogenetics can be used to control the activity of neurons in freely-moving mammals. Using the technique, scientists are able to study the natural mechanisms of how the brain works and the pathological changes implicated in brain disease.

Dr. Karl Deisseroth, a world leader in optogenetics, gave a talk at the Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning on July 6 as this years Aser Rothstein Lecture Series speaker. Deisseroth is theD.H. Chen Professor of Bioengineering and of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University. Hisbackground in both psychiatry and bioengineering places him in a unique position to approach optogenetics.

Whats cool now is that we can control neurons and play in activity patterns just like a conductor conducting an orchestra and we can do this during complex behaviours and see what actually causes certain behaviour, such as memory cognitions, affective, or emotional states, Deisseroth said in an interview with The Varsity.

The initial concept of [past] experiments were relatively cheap and easy, but then actually making it all work in a behaving animal took about four to five years, he continued. I had to build the technology and test it and apply it and also help other people because it was a very new thing and a strange kind of thing to do in science.

Deisseroth sees optogenetics as a mature technology, but he believes there is always room for improvements, as he and his team are continuing to tweak it.

The next step really is to go beyond and integrate it with other methods so we can get to a deep understanding of those circuits, he said.

Computer science and artificial intelligence offer new capabilities in this field, and the challenge will be to bridge the gap between these fields and neuroscience. [This is] probably one of the most exciting places to be, but it needs people from all walks of life, and all kinds of disciplines its a really wide-open territory for smart people.

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Uniting psychiatry and bioengineering to study brain disease - Varsity

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This August marks the last month of Mark Spong as the dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. He will step down and become a regular faculty member after taking the upcoming school year off. In an interview with The Mercury, Spong spoke about what the Jonsson School has accomplished and what the future will look like.

Q:Why are you stepping down from the dean position?

Before I was dean, I was a faculty member, and I still am a faculty member doing research and teaching and other things. For personal and professional reasons, I thought it was a good time to pass it on to someone else. I think we have accomplished a lot here at the Jonsson School. After 9 years, its always good to get new administration in place and Im ready to go back.

Q:Who will the new dean be?

Basically, theyve hired a professional search firm to look nationwide for a new dean. Theyll be bringing in candidates in the fall, and in the spring they will start interviewing them. I think they are looking to introduce the new dean in the fall 2018 term. That would be a good time, or maybe even summer 2018. I am completely out of the process.

Q:What are your plans after August?

Im not going anywhere; Im just going to teach and research. Im going to be on leave for this year, but when I come back, I will be teaching robotics and control systems. My title would just be professor.

Q:Who will handle the dean responsibilities in the meantime?

The interim dean will be Poras Balsara (a professor of electrical engineering). Hes been a longstanding faculty member, and he has done a lot for the Jonsson School. Hes been here doing research and teaching. He has served as an associate dean, helping me a lot. He serves on university-wide committees. Hes done it all in terms of service for the university.

Q:Over the past 30 years, what do you think has been the biggest accomplishment for the Jonsson School?

Thirty years ago, there was nothing. I think it has been tremendous to grow from nothing to the third place engineering school in the state behind UT (Austin) and Texas A&M. When I came on board in 2008, we had very bold plans to start the mechanical and bioengineering departments, and they have both been very successful. Prior to 2008, we only had electrical engineering and computer science. Weve gone from two departments to six now.

Q:What else do you see in the future for the Jonsson School?

I think the Jonsson chool should continue to grow, We added more than 10 faculty members and more than 10 percent of the student population every year, and I think soon we will double in terms of faculty size and research. I think the student population aspect will start to level out, however.

Q:What do you think has been the biggest reason for your growth?

I think that one, of course, is the six million and growing people in DFW. Theres a real hunger for our research university. The Tier 1 Initiative has been really good for our university and for the Jonsson School. Both of these have led to the new departments of bioengineering and mechanical engineering, which did not exist prior to 2008.

Q:What is your biggest contribution to the Jonsson School?

Everything that weve done has been a team effort. Its not just me who has been growing this school; its a collaborative effort between me and all the other faculty (and) staff members. That being said, weve hired a lot of outstanding research faculty and theyve been doing an amazing job. Our annual research expenditures have gone from about $20 million to over $50 million. We produce about 80 Ph.D.s a year now, which I think is really impressive. Weve opened the bioengineering and sciences building the BSB is brand new. On Rutford and Franklyn Jenifer, we are constructing a new engineering building, which will be the primary home for mechanical engineering.

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Q&A: Mark Spong | Dean of ECCS - The UTD Mercury

Few people would immediately recognise the skin as our bodies largest organ, but the adult human has on average two square metres of it. Its also one of the most important organs and is full of nerve endings that provide us with instant reports of temperature, pressure and pain.

So far the best attempts to copy this remarkable organ have resulted in experimental skin with sensor arrays that, at best, can only measure one particular stimulus.

But the SmartCore project, funded by the EU's European Research Council and at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria, hopes to create a material that responds to multiple stimuli. To do so requires working at a nanoscale where one nanometre represents a billionth of a metre creating embedded arrays of minuscule sensors that could be 2 000 times more sensitive than human skin.

Principal investigator Dr Anna Maria Coclite, an assistant professor at TU Grazs Institute for Solid State Physics, says the project aims to create a nanoscale sensor which can pick up temperature, humidity and pressure not separately, but as an all-in-one package.

They will be made of a smart polymer core which expands depending on the humidity and temperature, and a piezoelectric shell, which produces an electric current when pressure is applied, she said.

These smart cores would be sandwiched between two similarly tiny nanoscale grids of electrodes which sense the electrical charges given off when the sensors feel and then transmit this data.

If the team can surmount the primary challenge of distinguishing between the different senses, the first prototype should be ready in 2019, opening the door for a range of test uses.

Robots

Dr Coclite says the first applications of a successful prototype would be in robotics since the artificial skin theyre developing has little in common with our fleshy exterior apart from its ability to sense.

The idea is that it could be used in ways like robotic hands that are able to sense temperatures.

Dr Anna Maria Coclite, Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), Austria

The idea is that it could be used in ways, like robotic hands, that are able to sense temperatures, said Dr Coclite. Or even things that can be sensed on even a much smaller scale than humans can feel, i.e, robotic hands covered in such an artificial skin material that is able to sense bacteria.

Moreover, she says the polymers used to create smart cores are so flexible that a successful sensor could potentially be modified in the future to sense other things like the acidity of sweat, which could be integrated into smart clothes that monitor your health while youre working out.

And perhaps, one day, those who have lost a limb or suffered burns could also benefit from such multi-stimuli sensing capabilities in the form of a convincingly human artificial skin.

It would be fantastic if we could apply it to humans, but theres still lots of work that needs to be done by scientists in turning electronic pulses into signals that could be sent to the brain and recognised, said Dr Coclite.

She also says that even once a successful prototype is developed, possible cyborg use in humans would be at least a decade away especially taking into account the need to test for things like toxicity and how human bodies might accept or reject such materials.

Getting a grip

But before any such solutions are possible, we must learn more about biological tissue mechanics, says Professor Michel Destrade, host scientist of the EU-backed SOFT-TISSUES project, funded by the EU's Marie Skodowska-Curie actions.

Prof. Destrade, an applied mathematician at the National University of Ireland Galway, is supporting Marie Skodowska-Curie fellow Dr Valentina Balbi in developing mathematical models that explain how soft tissue like eyes, brains and skin behave.

For example, skin has some very marked mechanical properties, said Prof. Destrade. In particular its stretch in the body sometimes you get a very small cut and it opens up like a ripe fruit.

This is something he has previously researched with acoustic testing, which uses non-destructive sound waves to investigate tissue structure, instead of chopping up organs for experimentation.

And in SOFT-TISSUES skin research, the team hopes to use sound waves and modelling as a cheap and immediate means of finding the tension of skin at any given part of the body for any given person.

This is really important to surgeons, who need to know in which direction they should cut skin to avoid extensive scarring, explained Prof. Destrade. But also for the people creating artificial skin to know how to deal with mismatches in tension when they connect it to real skin.

If you are someone looking to create artificial skin and stretch it onto the body, then you need to know which is the best way to cut and stretch it, the direction of the fibres needed to support it and so on.

Dr Balbi reports that the biomedical industry has a real hunger for knowledge provided by mathematical modelling of soft tissues and especially for use in bioengineering.

She says such knowledge could be useful in areas like cancer research into brain tumour growth and could even help improve the structure of lab-grown human skin as an alternative to donor grafts.

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Artificial skin could allow robots to feel like we do - Horizon magazine

J uly 18th marked the two-hundredth anniversary of Jane Austens death. Since 1817, we have been treated to countless adaptations of Austens work, which have given us dozens of versions of Mr. Darcy to rank by hotness. Here are some predictions for the adaptations that the next two hundred years will bring.

Lydia Bennets Snapchat Story

This Snapchat story depicts the life of a modern-day Lydia Bennet in ten-second chunks. It starts out as a pretty standard third-tier-friend-of-Kylie Jenner Snapchat, featuring dog filters, inflatable pool swans, and hunks. Nothing really changes when theres drama with Wickham, except that Lydia begins overusing the sad-pineapple emoji sticker. Long after theres anything interesting going on between Lydia and Wickham, they try to stay relevant by getting really into crystals.

Virtual Reality Sense and Sensibility

This V.R. experience allows the viewer to live out the most exciting year in Elinor Dashwoods life. The majority of the viewers time is spent in a sitting room doing needlepoint, with brief interludes of talking to random neighbors, and even briefer interludes of flirting with Edward Ferrars, who is fine but kind of a dullard.

Mansfield Planet

In Austens third novel, Mansfield Park, the young Fanny Price is sent to live with her aunt and uncle in the British countryside. This movie asks: What if she were sent to live with her aunt and uncle... in space? Everything else is the same as in the original.

A Harry Styles Album with Each Song Inspired by a Different Austen Love Interest

The man is an artist.

Venmo Presents: Austens Juvenilia

Did you know that Austen wrote some genuinely hilarious juvenilia? And did you know that, in the year 2085, Venmo is going to be a major studio that produces on-phone-only narrative content? At first youll be, like, I dont care about Venmo shows, but when Austens Juvenilia comes out youll be hooked. (Not you you, of course. A general you. You you will be dead.)

Persuasion (2117)

Released in the year 2117, this rare film adaptation of Persuasion tells the story of an extremely elderly (twenty-seven-year-old) spinster who reconnects with her naval-officer ex-love. In this updated version, the Navy guys are always talking about how sea levels have risen, like, five whole inches in the past year alone, which maybe doesnt sound that bad, but it is.

A Series of Plays, Movies, and Miniseries Starring Colin Firths Hologram

Just because adaptations of Austens work can and will continue to be made for hundreds of years doesnt mean that we need to keep experimenting with who should play Mr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy is a thirty-five-year-old Colin Firth in a wet white shirt.

A Completed, Updated Version of Sanditon

Austens final, unfinished novel, Sanditon, begins with a carriage overturning. This version, written in 2150, begins with a self-driving car overturning. Wow! Technology!

Absolutely Nothing Northanger Abbey-Related

In 2158, the last remaining human who has ever heard of Northanger Abbey will die.

Persuasion (2167)

A generally faithful adaptation set in 2167, but now the planet is made of magma.

Janes Austens

In an age when cloning technology has finally been perfected, this movie asks: What would happen if a bioengineering company created a theme park filled with cloned Jane Austens? The answer is: the Austens pretty much just sit around writing novels.

A Dating App with No Real Men but a Fake Profile for Every Man Mentioned in an Austen Novel

Its a really fun interface, and, since there are fifty billion humans on the planet, actual dating has been outlawed anyway.

Fast & Fastibility

In spite of what the title implies, this Fast & Furious movie (the seventy-second in the franchise) actually follows the basic plot of Emma.

Persuasion (2217)

This film, set after the explosion of Earth, depicts the budding romance between several human consciousnesses that have been uploaded to the Cloud. And, in keeping with liberalized expectations of women, the spinster character is no longer twenty-seven. Shes thirty-one.

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Future Austen Adaptations - The New Yorker