Three ENG professors honored by election to top professional group

By David J. Craig

Evan Evans has spent his entire career studying the physics that underlie the molecular machinery inside living cells. In the emerging and often misunderstood field of biomedical engineering, such basic research is not exactly headline-grabbing stuff.

Yet Evans, an unpretentious man who would rather discuss the intricacies of cell membranes than professional laurels, recently received a resounding affirmation of the value of his work: he was one of three ENG professors of biomedical engineering inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) -- an honor reserved for the elite 2 percent of scientists in the field.
Collins and Colburn
ENG Professors of Biomedical Engineering James Collins and Steven Colburn (from left) were elected recently to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. They were judged by their peers to be among the top 2 percent of scientists working in the field. Photo by Vernon Doucette

ENG Professors James Collins and Steven Colburn also were admitted to the 400-member college at the annual induction ceremony at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on March 3.

"This means that these professors represent the very best and brightest of all biomedical engineers in the country and that each has made a major impact in his area of expertise," says Kenneth Lutchen, chairman of ENG's department of biomedical engineering. "Very few biomedical engineering departments can boast such a large number of faculty members admitted to this body."

The new inductees join Lutchen, Carlo De Luca, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering, research professor of neurology at the BU School of Medicine, and director of BU's NeuroMuscular Research Center (NMRC), Herbert Voigt, an ENG associate professor of biomedical engineering, Gerald Gottlieb, a research professor at NMRC, and Serge H. Roy, a research associate professor at NMRC, as AIMBE fellows.

Speaking up for science
An umbrella organization with which almost all biomedical engineering organizations in the United States are affiliated, the AIMBE was established in 1992. Its primary functions are to promote the field of biomedical engineering and to lobby Congress for research dollars. In 1998, its members convinced the National Institutes of Health to recognize biomedical engineering as a distinct discipline, making it easier for those working in the field to attract government funds.

Evans, whom Lutchen describes as "a giant" in the study of nano-microscale biomechanics, says that AIMBE meetings provide an opportunity to interact with other prominent biomedical engineers, who tend to come from a variety of academic backgrounds and work in myriad subspecialties.
Evan Evans
Evan Evans, ENG professor of biomedical engineering, is considered a leader in the study of the biomechanics of living cells. Photo by Fred Sway

"I see my job as trying to understand how nature works, and what makes it fail, which ultimately informs developments in health care," says Evans. "The whole point of this organization is to bring together those working in the basic sciences with those doing more applied work. AIMBE's national meeting has enough breadth and sophistication to attract the interest of everybody in the field."

Colburn is director of BU's Center for Hearing Research and is best known for his work on how the human brain processes auditory signals from both ears simultaneously. His research has led to the manufacture of hearing aids and to virtual-environment laboratories to test hearing. Because biomedical engineering is a young field, he says, informing the public about what biomedical engineers do is important.

"A lot of my work is easy to justify because it has applications for health care that are pretty obvious," says Colburn, who studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate at MIT in the 1960s, when MIT had no biomedical engineering department. "But funding for this field, especially for those who do, specifically, engineering-oriented research, is still being developed.

"So the main responsibility of being a fellow is that you act as sort of a spokesman for the field," he continues. "Whatever recognition you have as a scientist, you lend to the field. That is an honor, and it's also very important because the public still is confused by the field, mainly because of how broad it is."

Collins is one inductee who promises to lend plenty of visibility to the field in the next year. The codirector of BU's Center for BioDynamics, he is best known for developing genetic applets -- genetic mechanisms that can be implanted in a patient and programmed to control cell function. He hopes soon to launch a company that will develop a commercial application of the "genetic toggle switch" that he and graduate student Timothy Gardner (ENG'00) created last year. The man-made gene acts as an on-off switch that controls when genes manufacture certain proteins and DNA, and has implications for treating a variety of diseases.

"We also recently found that tactile sensitivity in people with elevated sensory thresholds can be enhanced by introducing mechanical noise -- that is, random vibrations," says Collins. "Thus, diabetic patients or elderly people who have trouble feeling their feet might be aided by a vibrating insole in their shoes."

Collins is now working with Sensory Technologies, a Providence start-up that licensed the noise-based technology last year, in hopes of developing a commercially viable device.

He agrees that biomedical engineers have a long way to go in promoting their field. "Right now, the funding climate is quite good, as is the industrial climate for our students," he says. "But I think that even for applied work, there is still a need to increase funding opportunities."

 

 

Biomedical Engineering Day a rare opportunity for area high schoolers
By Eric McHenry

Natalie Etienne is beginning to wonder if she has a heartbeat. The Brockton High School senior has followed the instructions carefully, affixing electrodes to her wrists and ankle, but the oscilloscope screen has yet to reward her with anything but a flat line.

Frustrated, she waves her arms around. The line becomes a crazy zigzag, and she laughs. Then Matt Crema, an ENG biomedical engineer, tells everyone to adjust something called "the gain," which regulates the machine's sensitivity.

"The oscilloscope is dumb," he explains. "You have to tell it what to do."

Natalie's lab partner, another Brockton High senior, named Glenda Molina, makes the adjustment. Natalie sits still and waits. Soon the level line is broken, then broken again, then again, by her heartbeat's recognizable spikes.

"There it is," Crema says. Natalie seems pleased -- and perhaps just a little relieved.

Biomedical Engineering Day, held March 31 at BU, is a unique treat for students like Natalie and Glenda. High school affords them few opportunities to exercise their interest in the emerging discipline.

"I don't think engineering of any sort is taught at the high school level," says Herbert Voigt, an ENG professor. "There certainly aren't engineering courses in the traditional secondary school curriculum. The only way high school students find out about it is if a mother or father comes in on a career day and talks about it. Biomedical Engineering Day is a way of reaching out to the greater Boston community, of giving high school students an opportunity to visit our laboratories and learn about the discipline."

Voigt created Biomedical Engineering Day in 1997. He'd gone to Arizona State University for a guest appearance at a similar event, and had come back impressed. Initially, only undergraduates participated. Then, in 1999, BU's Learning Resource Network (LERNet) joined the cause, contributing the resources and legwork necessary to open the day to area high school students. More than a hundred took part in this year's activities, which included laboratory tours, a career panel involving biomedical engineers from both industry and academia, and presentations by distinguished scholars.

In addition to helping out with the lab tours, undergraduates heard a keynote address by Jeffrey Fredberg, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a discussion of careers in biomedical engineering by a panel of BU alumni. They also took part in an interview workshop, which entailed preparing and submitting a résumé, being mock-interviewed by a representative of industry or a BU faculty member, and receiving a critique.

Well over half of the high school students who came to this year's Biomedical Engineering Day were girls, a figure consistent with the distribution of interest in the discipline that Voigt sees among undergraduates. Because biomedical engineering appeals equally to both sexes, he says, promoting it can help to redress the underrepresentation of women in engineering.

"It has a very strong attraction," Voigt says, "to women who happen to be interested in math and science, but who are not necessarily interested in going into the military-industrial complex or consumer electronics or that sort of thing. Many see it as a way of using their talents to help humanity."

Biomedical Engineering Day was sponsored by the Learning Resource Network and by the BU chapters of the Biomedical Engineering Society and Alpha Eta Mu Beta. For more information about LERNet, visit www.bu.edu/LERNet. For more information about the department of biomedical engineering at Boston University, visit www/bu.edu/eng/bme.