My brother chose to study neurology — and believe me, he has the brains for it — but his first choice would have been biomedical engineering. However, the latter would have required him to complete a medical degree and then continue on for a second advanced degree in engineering. Had he started medical school even a year or two later, however, his options for a career in biomedical engineering would have been significantly different.
The University of Virginia in Charleston, VA, now offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in biomedical engineering, programs which provide a marriage between the study of medicine and engineering.
“The essential premise behind biomedical engineering is that the application of engineering to medicine will benefit health care. Not only is engineering used to solve problems in biology, but our increasing understanding of living systems at the cellular and molecular levels suggests that the lessons learned from billions of years of evolution can lead to the design of artificial systems,” says the University of Virginia website. “Both industry and academia recognize that students with a solid footing in both biology and engineering can contribute in ways that students with traditional engineering training cannot.”
The biomedical engineering graduate program at the University of Virginia provides the following areas of study: cardiovascular bioengineering, biomedical and molecular imaging, cellular and molecular bioengineering, computational systems bioengineering, tissue engineering and biomaterials, neural and bioelectric systems, and musculoskeletal bioengineering.
Perhaps the most famous example of a biomedical engineering device is the Jarvik Artificial Heart developed by Robert Jarvik, which continues to be used for critically ill heart transplant candidates as a temporary bridge to a transplant until a natural donor heart becomes available.
Other biomedical devices, or prosthetics, can be internal or external devices which mimic body functions and take the place of them when an individual has experienced a loss of function. Veterans of the war in Iraq who lost limbs in battle have improved options today for living normal lives through the development of prosthetic arms and legs that are custom fit for the amputee down to the elastomeric liner, stretchy socks worn between residual limbs and prosthetic sockets.
Although the devices developed by biomedical engineers can be life saving, from a venture capital point of view, monetary investment into the associated research is risky business. Medical devices, which can cost billions, can be taken off the market very quickly if a detrimental flaw is detected, since their failure can cost lives. Nonetheless, individuals who have benefited from a medical device or another advanced medical technology are often eager to fund the work so that others can benefit from an improved quality of life.
As more is discovered about genetics and chemical makeup, individuals in this century who participate in biomedical engineering processes will make a significant impact on how humans thrive.
