Biomedical Engineering

The relatively brief history of medical MRI is riddled with failed predictions, according to University Professor John Gore, founding director of the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science. Bold statements about the optimal magnetic field and the limits of magnet strength were way off. In 1982 one researcher concluded MRI was useful for imaging the... Read More

The relatively brief history of medical MRI is riddled with failed predictions, according to University Professor John Gore, founding director of the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science. Bold statements about the optimal magnetic field and the limits of magnet strength were way off. In 1982 one researcher concluded MRI was useful for imaging the... Read More

A series of family heartaches propelled Yoanna Ivanova to pursue cellular research tied to breast cancer. She credits her connections with fellow engineering majors in the Clark Scholars Program for creating positive experiences in and out of the lab. Read More

Samantha Schwager, a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, is one of 100 doctoral students within the United States and Canada selected to receive a Philanthropic Educational Organization Scholar Award from the P.E.O. Sisterhood. Read More

Matthew Walker III, who developed and taught Vanderbilt University’s innovative biomedical engineering design curriculum, died unexpectedly on April 24. He was 56. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center is the busiest cochlear implant center in the U.S., performing more than 300 implant surgeries each year. A key driver is close collaboration among engineers, surgeons, audiologists, speech scientists and other experts. This interdisciplinary, trans-institutional work has enabled a truly customized approach for each patient. Research teams have developed image-guided surgery for... Read More

A Vanderbilt research team has received a $2 million National Institutes of Health grant to further develop a needle-size robotic surgery system with real-time MRI guidance for drug resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Such a procedure has the potential to reduce or eliminate seizures using a minimally invasive approach over the current standard of care,... Read More

David Merryman has discovered that targeting a protein receptor in heart cells may limit a heart attack’s acute and long-term effects. Read More

A noninvasive, quantitative MRI method could be used after surgical repair of traumatic peripheral nerve injury to help clinicians make decisions about whether additional surgical interventions are needed. Read More

Researchers will combine expertise in developmental cell biology and tissue engineering/microfluidics to develop highly complex organoids, with the goal of understanding currently incurable neurological disorders.  Read More

Nearly 40 School of Engineering faculty members have been named among the top 2 percent of 7 million working scientists in the world. More than 60 percent of the school’s full professors are in this elite group, based on a recent study by a Stanford University professor and his colleagues. The study combines several different... Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have received a National Cancer Institute grant to develop a novel, integrative approach to detect early signs of lung cancer. The four-year project builds on a related, recent study that established the value of using three separate measures—structural imaging, a protein marker and information available from electronic health records—to predict lung cancer in... Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have received a $1.49 million National Science Foundation grant to advance the science of organoids with cells that organize themselves and mimic the development of human brain structures. Read More

Christos Constantinidis has been appointed professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering beginning Jan. 1, 2021. At Vanderbilt, he also will be a member of the university’s Brain Institute and the Vision Research Center. Read More

Anita Mahadevan-Jansen (Vanderbilt University) The Vanderbilt Biophotonics Center, directed by Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Biomedical Engineering, conducts research on clinical photonics, neurophotonics and multiscale photonics to develop optical technologies that improve patient care. When Vanderbilt ramped down in-person research activities in mid-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mahadevan-Jansen and her team did... Read More

When in-person research ramped down in mid-March due to COVID-19, Anita Mahadevan-Jansen and her team did not know when they'd be back in the lab, so they methodically preserved experiments. While preparing the lab for closure was not difficult, the team’s two-month absence created complex academic and financial challenges that they continue to work to overcome. Read More

With a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Imaging Scientists program, a research assistant professor of biomedical imaging will extend the accessibility of specialized microscopy equipment and expertise within Vanderbilt University to a broader pool of researchers, including students. Bryan Millis, also a research assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, develops microscopy and imaging technologies... Read More

Researchers in the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science have received a $1 million grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to develop “deep tissue” imaging methods that can peer into the furthest corners of the body. Read More

Bryan Millis, research assistant professor of cell and developmental biology and biomedical engineering, has been awarded a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Imaging Scientists program. The proceeds will go toward building an immersive virtual education platform to expand instruction and accessibility of high-end microscopy techniques within and beyond the Vanderbilt research community. Read More

Measuring changes in functional connectivity of the brain’s white matter, which is made up of nerve fibers and their protective myelin coating, can predict Alzheimer’s disease progression, researchers in the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science have found. Previous studies have correlated variations in blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signals detected by functional magnetic resonance... Read More