What is Biomedical Engineering?

Well, this is the second post, which I could have omitted and had begun explaining a topic, however, I think it is important to try, at least, to explain what Biomedical Engineering (BME) is and why it is so important for the medicine's improvement. The reason why I will be talking about BME is because it is the degree I am currently studying :).

The definition given by the National Institute of Health for BME says: "Biomedical Engineering integrates physical, chemical, mathematical and computational sciences and engineering principles to study biology, medicine, behaviour and health." Other institutions also give very similar definitions such as the one given by the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society: "Biomedical Engineering integrates biology and medicine with engineering to solve problems related to living systems."

In general, all definitions given to the BME field integrate the words: engineering, medicine, biology, study and solve. Those are key words! In conclusion, studying and solving problems trying to come up with a solution to biological systems is the main goal of BME studies. 

But... When did all this revolution of mixing engineering with medicine started? 

Well, the first big application of engineering in medicine came with the X-ray discovery given in the 1895, which lead to the first radioscopies and radiographies. 

Surgical removal of a bullet whose
location was diagnosed with X-rays in 1897.

In 1896, just one year after the discovery of X-ray technology, first contrast agents were found: bismuth and barium in digestive system and urinary bladder. 

The discovery of X-ray opened doors to develop new technologies so as to help in the disease's diagnosis as well as in the surgeries, among others. During the first fifty years of the 20th century, medicine experienced big improvements, such as the first blood banks, penicillin, the first metallic catheters, the electronic microscope development, among others. In the 1960, biomedical engineering became a degree at universities. Ten years later, computers applied to medicine were developed.  Finally, in the 1990, the most important genetic project started: The Human Genome Project. The  present and future of BME is the research in lots of fields such as the laser surgery, personalised and preventive medicine, tissue engineering. 

Biomedical Engineering Disciplines 

BME comprehends a large list of disciplines. Some of them will be seen in future posts, while few of them will be briefly presented below:

• Instrumentation, Sensors and Measurement: This field involves the software and hardware design of devices and systems used to measure biological signals. This ranges from the development of sensors that can capture biological signals of interest to the building of a complete instrumentation or monitoring system. 

Electromyography (EMG)

• Bioinformatics: This field involves the development of computer tools to collect and analyse data related to living systems. Research in bioinformatics could involve techniques to manage and search databases of gene sequences that contain many millions of entries. There are many Genome Browsers used to obtain and manipulate genomic information. The two principal browsers are the UCSC Genome Browser and ENSEMBL. 

Ensembl Genome Browser

UCSC Genome Browser

• Biomaterials: These are materials that are processed for use in the construction of devices or implants with the particularity that these have to interact with living tissues surrounding the implant. Important advances are being done in this field, such as the development of materials that can aid in controlled drug delivery using nano-materials as well as molecules, artificial joint implants, among others.  

Lipid-based drug delivery simulation

• Biomechanics: This field is based in the study of mechanics applied to living systems including the study of their motion, material deformation, and fluid flow. Results obtained from the study of previously mentioned parameters lead to the development of artificial hearts or design of prosthetic limbs. 

Page of one of the first works done in Biomechanics
in the 17th century by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli

• Biosignal Processing: Involves extracting information from a biological signal measured from a patient for diagnostics, therapeutics purposes (studying cardiac signals, detecting features of brain signals that can be used to control a computer...) and to understand the underlying physiological mechanisms of a specific biological system. 

    Biomedical Signal Processing  

• Robotics in Surgery: New techniques for executing a surgery can minimise the side effects of surgery by providing smaller incisions, less trauma, more precision, less time, and decreasing costs. Robotics in surgery are not limited to robots helping in executing the surgery or part of it, they are also helpful for the image processing systems to plan and execute a surgery. Da Vinci Surgical System is a well-known robot that includes: general laproscopic surgery, gynaecological surgery, urological surgery, and general non-cardiovascular thoracic surgical procedures.

Da Vinci Robotic Assisted Surgery

• Clinical Engineering: This field is in charge of applying engineering to healthcare technology based in hospitals, mostly. Clinical engineers have the responsibility to manage the hospital's medical equipment systems, ensuring that all medical equipment is safe and effective, and working with physicians to adapt instrumentation to meet the specific needs of the physician and the hospital. Aside from working in hospitals, clinical engineers also work developing new medical products making sure they cover medical necessities. 
  

Clinical Engineer 

Discipline's list could continue but with the ones exposed above, you might already have an idea of what biomedical studies are and which are their general disciplines. As I said before, more disciplines will be explained in future posts, the ones explained above are just few of them. The criteria used to choose the disciplines I wanted to talk about is random, just selecting the ones I am most familiar with. I am sure that specialists know have to make a proper classification but that's not me :/.  

Anyways, I will end the post here. I think that all information attached to this point is enough so as to cover the introduction I wanted to do. 

Before leaving, I hope that you have an idea of what biomedical engineering is and you enjoyed reading through this post. I know my knowledge is still very limited, so if you can help me understand better some concepts I am opened to all kind of comments and suggestions. 

Let's keep on learning together!