Imaging Innovation

A long and productive history of research between Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and GE Healthcare will serve as a framework for future innovation in a new medical imaging facility dedicated recently at the Purdue Research Park. The facility includes a state-of-the-art 3-Tesla MRI system. The planned research builds on previous collaborative efforts between biomedical engineering and GE to perform key safety studies for fastscan MRI techniques and to enhance images from Computed Tomography (CT) systems.

Purdue undergraduate students can now apply for new NSF-funded scholarships in a new and innovative program in Quantitative Physiology. These need-based scholarships will assist qualified students to explore the dynamic interface between biology, medicine, mathematical analysis and computational analysis and modeling. Building on the Weldon School's Computational and Systems Biology area of expertise, Quantitative Physiology is a multi-departmental program that includes faculty members from Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Basic Medical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Mechanical Engineering, and the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. Students will have opportunities to experience classroom, hands-on, and community outreach learning opportunities in quantitative and experimental aspects of physiology in areas such as cardiac modeling and electrophysiology, experimental models of spinal cord injury, neural coding strategies in the auditory system, neuronal models of learning-induced plasticity, and detection and control of epileptic seizure activity. Graduate students and senior undergraduate students in the program will serve as mentors for those that follow, as well as ambassadors to their former high schools and universities.

More information, including application procedures for the program and scholarships, can be found here.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health has highlighted optical imaging being performed at the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. The research by Prof. Ji-Xin Cheng's team focuses on the use of CARS (Coherent anti-Strokes Raman Scattering) on detecting and monitoring demyelination in nerves.

The Weldon School continues to expand its faculty in strategic growth areas such as orthopedics. The latest addition to our faculty will arrive this August from the University of California, Davis.

Corey P. Neu, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, brings expertise in musculo-skeletal systems and advanced MRI techniques. His research focuses on the response of skeletal cells to mechanical stimuli, motion encoding and deformation measurements using MRI, tribology of artificial joints, regeneration and repair of articular cartilage, biomechanics, and medical imaging. He earned his Sc.B. in mechanical engineering from Brown University in 1998, his Sc.M. in biomedical engineering from Brown University in 1999, and his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis, in 2004. He received the Zuhair Munir Award for best doctoral dissertation in 2005.