Happy 120th Anniversary
While COVID-19 has certainly brought about challenging times, it has also revealed the strong innovative spirit and positive impact that occur at the interface of engineering and medicine. The Purdue College of Engineering has played a critical role in developing solutions to address COVID-19-related needs, including a collaboration to spur rapid, point-of-care testing and a new approach to airborne disinfection, among many efforts. In addition, to expand our educational programs, research capabilities and industry outreach, we recently dedicated the Biomedical Engineering Innovation Wing.
These new achievements build on and leverage long-standing collaboration between Purdue’s College of Engineering and Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM). These institutions have partnered for more than 20 years, giving rise to new cross-disciplinary training programs and new technologies that address persistent healthcare challenges.
With the goal of further bolstering these efforts and impact, a faculty council for the Purdue Engineering-Medicine Initiative (a Purdue Engineering Initiative, or PEI) was formed last year, representing faculty from across the College of Engineering. Over the past year, this group quickly gelled and focused on three prioritized, ongoing initiatives: 1) expanding cross-disciplinary training opportunities for engineering and medical students, 2) bringing together and energizing the broader biomedical engineering community, and 3) fostering partnerships in strategic growth across our state and beyond.
On the training front, a translational science and clinical immersion program was established, encouraging broad participation by engineering graduate students and physician-engineer trainees. This program, which promotes technology ideation, customer identification, and translation, was named after Purdue alumna Leslie Bottorff, honoring her for her generous contributions and dedication to graduate student mentorship. In addition, new training paths were forged, allowing medical students to pursue a scholarly concentration or master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering.
To advance community engagement, the PEI partnered with the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) to host the Engineering Giant Leaps in Medicine retreat on the West Lafayette campus. Some 400 students, faculty, clinicians, and industry partners from around the state converged to share their latest work and brainstorm ideas relevant to grand challenges in medicine and emerging technologies, such as wearable technologies, point-of-care diagnostics, healthcare data connectivity, and personalized medicine.
To foster collaboration, the PEI worked with the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering and the Regenstrief Institute to secure $28 million in funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to support development of an ecosystem linking medical devices, sensors, and data science. Moving forward, the PEI plans to use its momentum to further pave pathways for the engineering-centric training of physicians on our West Lafayette campus with IUSM, as well as enhance local clinical training and research collaborations with IU Health Arnett Hospital.
George R. Wodicka
Dane A. Miller Head and Professor
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
Sherry L. Harbin
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Basic Medical Sciences
Medium articles:
The internet of medical things: Smart stickers personalize health care - Ramses V. Martinez
AI puts the “precise” in precision health care - Matthew P. Ward
The mover and shaker within cells - Taeyoon Kim
Soft robots take cues from the wild kingdom - Ramses V. Martinez
Cartography of the heart - Craig J. Goergen