A Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering faculty member and graduate researchers were the recipients of two Purdue University Focus Awards. The awards are presented each March to those affiliated with Purdue who have made outstanding contributions in the area of disability accessibility and disability diversity. This year marked the 20th anniversary of the Focus Awards.

Our hands do so much more than just help us hold on to the world. They grip, but they also sense tactile surfaces and gradients in temperature. They detect pressure and weight to assist us in manipulating items and bracing ourselves.

Precise, personalized medicine requires nanoscale research and insight into the human cell to better understand disease and healing — the prerequisite for developing targeted therapies for specific pathologies and individual patients. But researchers cultivate cells in “wet” cultures hostile to electronic instrumentation, making it difficult to monitor cell function and behavior for a long period of time.

Frederick Damen, a fourth-year MD/PhD student in the Purdue University Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, received the 2018-2019 Geddes-Greatbatch-Laufman Award on Feb. 4 at the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Student Association general body meeting. The annual award is presented to the outstanding student or postdoctoral fellow in the Weldon School.

A significant investment from a Purdue University alumnus and his wife will help further develop technology aimed at treating obesity and diabetes by turning bad fat into good fat inside the body.

Anyone who has had a mammogram or an MRI knows how uncomfortable and awkward the tests can be. Now, Purdue University researchers have taken technology used in the defense and aerospace industries to create a novel way of doing some medical imaging.

Only a select number of state and local laboratories have permission from U.S. health officials to use diagnostic tests for COVID-19, a coronavirus-caused disease. If the virus is spreading nationwide, most communities do not have access to the necessary tests. Purdue University biomedical engineers have developed a handheld paper device that quickly and accurately detects a different strain of coronavirus, MERS-CoV, even in really small quantities.

A video on social media shows a high-ranking U.S. legislator declaring his support for an overwhelming tax increase. You react accordingly because the video looks like him and sounds like him, so certainly it has to be him. Not necessarily. The term “fake news” continues to take a much more literal turn as new technology is making it easier to manipulate the faces and audio in videos.

Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst survival rates among cancers. Patients can expect as low as a 9% chance to live for at least five years after being diagnosed. Going back in time to observe how cells with key gene mutations interact and become invasive would help researchers better understand how the cancer starts and identify it sooner.

Nearly 400 researchers and clinicians converged at Purdue University’s newly expanded Martin C. Jischke Hall of Biomedical Engineering for the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) Retreat on Jan. 31. It was the largest such retreat ever hosted on the West Lafayette campus.