Golden accomplishments in biomedical engineering.

"We are part of the solution," according to Dr. Bruce Wheeler, professor and interim chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida, Gainesville. As the new president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), Wheeler maintains leadership priorities that touch every stage of a biomedical engineer?s career?from the undergraduate level through the many roles and types of careers a senior engineer can enjoy?and include every way EMBS can take on the challenge of improving health care in response to present and imminent demands. He offers biomedical engineers a large-scale vision, showing them they are in a prime position to answer the questions the world will face as its population soars and the demand for health care increases, even as current modes of delivery struggle to achieve systemic adaption. In addition, he hopes to provide practical steps EMBS and its members can take to achieve that vision.

In the spring of 1884, a small group of individuals in the electrical professions met in New York. They formed a new organization, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), to support professionals in their nascent field and to aid them in their efforts to apply innovation for the betterment of humanity. With the new "radio" industry came a new society in 1912, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The IRE was modeled on the AIEE but was devoted to radio and then increasingly to electronics. On 1 January 1963, the AIEE and the IRE merged to form the IEEE. At its formation, the IEEE had 150,000 members, 140,000 of which were in the United States. By 2008, the IEEE amassed 375,000 members in 160 countries, with 43% of members residing outside of the United States.

During the last decade, the Human Genome Project [1], Human Proteome Project [2], Human Physiome Project [3], The International HapMap Project, Genome-Wide Associate Study (GWAS), The 1000 Genomes Project, The Human Microbiome Project, Epigenome, Metabolome, LIPID MAPS, and Next Generation Sequencing have generated large volumes of molecular data about human genes, proteins, physiology, SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphism), metabolites, and lipids etc. This has led to the fast growth of several research sub-areas: 1) high-volume molecular data mining and interpretation; 2) systems biology based on molecular features (i.e., biomarkers) extracted from high-throughput data. Examples include molecular interaction network reconstruction and pathway modeling; 3) synthetic biology, where researchers use engineering approach to make artificial cell and organism; and 4) translational bioinformatics that identifies genomic and proteomic biomarkers of disease to understand molecular mechanisms and guide clinical decision making. This field has grown so rapidly that there are a dozen bioinformatics conferences each year organized by researchers with different backgrounds such as biological or medical sciences, computing or computer science, and engineering. In 2004, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) started the theme “Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Systems Biology, Modeling Methodologies.” It started with high throughput omic data analysis, structural bioinformatics, physiological modeling, then moved to systems biology, and recently included synthetic biology, with future movement towards translational bioinformatics in biomedical applications such as cancer prevention, therapeutics, clinical data mining and decision making. In this spotlight, we summarize key topics of importance for the EMBS community.

The 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) was held 2-6 September 2009 at the Hilton Hotel in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, the world capital of medical device industry. The meeting gathered more than 2,000 world experts in biomedical engineering, including academics, researchers, industrialists, clinicians, and trainees for five days of science, networking, and social events.

Power struggles and factional clashes make the individual histories of the major engineering societies surprisingly fascinating topics for investigation. Of equal, or even greater, interest to IEEE members are present-day similarities and differences in these societies' approaches to member services. Last month's Spectrum told the stories of four of the "Founder Societies" - an appellation derived from the joint society financing and construction of two headquarters buildings over the years. IEEE's predecessor society, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE); the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) were all discussed in some detail in the May issue. Significant differences in the approaches of the individual societies to member services were explained as outgrowths of conditions surrounding the formative years of each society. This sequel to that article completes the comparison by considering the fifth Founder Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and IEEE's other ancestral society, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The article concludes by addressing several present-day concerns of the Founder Societies that will be of particular interest to IEEE members since those concerns reflect on some of IEEE's recent or incipient controversies.

The IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI) is a scientific conference dedicated to mathematical, algorithmic, and computational aspects of biological and biomedical imaging, across all scales of observation. It fosters knowledge transfer among different imaging communities and contributes to an integrative approach to biomedical imaging. ISBI is a joint initiative from the IEEE Signal Processing Society (SPS) and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). The 2018 meeting will include tutorials, and a scientific program composed of plenary talks, invited special sessions, challenges, as well as oral and poster presentations of peer-reviewed papers. High-quality papers are requested containing original contributions to the topics of interest including image formation and reconstruction, computational and statistical image processing and analysis, dynamic imaging, visualization, image quality assessment, and physical, biological, and statistical modeling. Accepted 4-page regular papers will be published in the symposium proceedings published by IEEE and included in IEEE Xplore. To encourage attendance by a broader audience of imaging scientists and offer additional presentation opportunities, ISBI 2018 will continue to have a second track featuring posters selected from 1-page abstract submissions without subsequent archival publication.

The five articles in this special section resulted from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Forum on Grand Challenges in Neuroengineering, held in May 2010 in Bethesda, MD.

A new engineering in medicine and biology society (EMBS) book on applications of computers in medicine [lists table of contents

The 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) has come to a successful end in Boston, and I'd like to use this column to bring your attention to two upcoming, exciting conferences sponsored by the EMBS.

To Help You Stay Current with Technology for 1982 A New Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) Book on Applications of Computers in Medicine

I came across an e-newsletter from the British Museum last week advertising free delivery when you spend more than £100 on British Museum sculptures and replicas. Inasmuch as my small flat in London could use a bust replica of an Egyptian noble woman or a Rosetta Stone coffee mug, it was the ending of the newsletter that caught my eye in particular. To help others find this newsletter, the British Museum has conveniently provided links to ten networking Web sites (some of which I have never heard of): Digg It!, Del.ico.us, Newsvine, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn. The British Museum is e-savvy. I started to think about the IEEE and the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS), and I thought I would share some of our own proud e-achievements and current endeavors that we have come a long way over the past several years.

The year 2009 has been a productive year for the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS). We have accomplished a great deal in enhancing the quality of conferences and publications, owing to the tremendous efforts from our volunteers and staff. I take great pride in recognizing the achievements of our members. Across the globe, we are fortunate to have innumerable examples of significant progress. It is my pleasure to report to you the past year's highlights.

Biomedical Engineers should be prepared to adapt to existing or forecasted needs. Today, education in Biomedical Engineering (BME) in Europe is mainly influenced by: a) the European policy on higher education, b) research & development (R&D) programs and c) the market demands. There is a strong pressure on education, training and life long learning programs to continuously adapt their objectives in order to face new requirements and challenges.The main objective of the TEMPUS IV, CRH-BME project is to update existing curricula in the field of BME in order to meet recent and future developments in the area, address new emerging interdisciplinary domains that appear as a result of the R&D progress and respond to the BME job market demands. The first step is to extensively review the curricula in the BME education field.The work is carried out through collection of information from the project partners by the means of questionnaires. The present study covered 46 countries in Europe and identified 40 countries with Biomedical Engineering programs. Approximately 150 Universities across Europe offer in total 297 BME programs, distributed as following: 77 Undergraduate programs offering BSc degree, and 220 Postgraduate programs, from which 161 offer MSc degree and 59 offer PhD degree.The results of this study reveal that Biomedical Engineering programs are experiencing rapid growth after the year 2000 and especially during the last five years. This leads to an increased number of Biomedical Engineers available today on the market and it is expected to play an important role in meeting the existing and forecasted needs in the BME field.KeywordsBiomedical EngineeringEducation programs reviewTEMPUS

On behalf of the entire membership of the Korean Sociey of Medical and Biological Engineering (KOSOMBE), I sincerely welcome all of you to the first issue of Biomedical Engineering Letters, published by KOSOMBE in collaboration with Springer-Verlag GmbH. This is an epoch-making new project for the Society and its members. We envision that this journal will become a major leading-edge publication in the field of biomedical engineering in the coming years. We hope that the subscribers and those submitting papers to the journal will share this vision with us. First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all who have contributed to the launching of this important journal in the February of 2011, especially to Prof. SangHoon Lee, editor-in-chief, and Prof. Jae Sung Lee, managing editor, as well as Prof. Sun I. Kim, immediate past President of KOSOMBE, who during his administration made a very tough decision to start this new English journal. I am also very grateful to the Springer staff for their superb support and to our printing company for their excellent job. As of 2011, KOSOMBE is proud of its 32-year history. In 2006, it sucessfully co-hosted the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Seoul, with approximately 3,000 participants from all over the world presenting about 2,500 papers under the theme of “Imaging the Future Medicine.” In 2010, we had a busy and productive year as we started another thirty years of history in the making, with the major new initiative on strengthening the scientific activities including the biannual congresses. And now we launch this new English journal under the theme of “Publishing the Future Medicine.” This journal with our new emblem of society on the front cover symbolizing “the collaborative development of medicine, biology, and engineering” will be a very meaningful addition to the chronicle of the biomedical engineering world. I strongly hope that the journal will encompass a wide array of disciplines within and beyond biomedical engineering and provide a creative space for facilitating scientific communication and solving health-related tasks in this aging world. Personally, it has been a great learning experience to be a part of this launching process, and I would like to thank our Board members for having supported the launching of this journal. Now, you are cordially invited to share your scholarly experiences with fellow researchers around the world by publishing papers in Biomedical Engineering Letters.

Undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) programs have increased considerably and the drives for continuous improvement of the programs persist. While covering a comprehensive base of multiple disciplines required for BME studies on campus has been a big challenge, the Industry Professional Advisory Committee members usually recommend incorporating experiential learning modules of coop or internship in the curriculum. Embedding cooperative modules within the undergraduate BME educational program is aimed to assist students in gaining the highly valuable reallife experience. The cooperative work modules facilitate the students in exploring different realistic aspects of the complex work processes in the biomedical engineering field. The values of the cooperative learning modules are recognized by the academicians. However, the developers of the BME curriculum find the inclusion of cooperative work experience or internship with a heavy course load in the program a formidable challenge. The main objective of the present work is to develop few cooperative experiential learning models for BME undergraduate students. Some variations in the models can be applied to graduate students though the constraints are different. In this paper, designs of a few co-op/internship models embedded in the undergraduate BME curriculum are described. A BME Co-op model with three phases at a teaching hospital is illustrated. Other models of one semester at a medical device company or at an academic research lab are mentioned. The results obtained clearly support the proposed co-op/internship scheme. In conclusion, integrating the cooperative work experience will be of significant value in biomedical engineering education by giving opportunities for real-life work experience to the students. For sustained success, it is essential that a suitable model must be selected to blend with the mission of the overall training program at the academic institution.