ARCHIVED NEWS

Lucrative Lessons: Engineering Pegged as Degree With Highest Starting Salary
Based on recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 12 of the top 15 degrees garnering high starting salaries for college graduates are in engineering. In fact, four of the five top spots are held by an engineering discipline and include petroleum, chemical, mining and computer engineering.

Founding Chair Named to Department of Biomedical Engineering
(Metin Akay, professor and former interim chair at Arizona State University’s Harrington Department of Bioengineering, has been appointed to lead the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering’s new Department of Biomedical Engineering. He plans to develop new academic and research fields that include biomedical imaging, neural and cognitive engineering and genomics and proteomics science and engineering. Plans are also underway to enhance the program’s offerings with a Ph.D. option in addition to existing bachelor’s and master’s degree tracks.

College Unveils New Undergraduate Lab
(April 14, 2009) The University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering has opened a laboratory devoted to enhancing undergraduate education through hands-on instruction in bioanalytics. The Biomedical Engineering Bioanalytics Undergraduate Laboratory, which officially opened in the fall, allows students to learn biophysical laws governing cell behavior to better understand how RNA, DNA and protein are regulated.

Undergraduate Students Construct Lab Instrument
(March 10, 2009) Undergraduate biomedical engineering students Arjun Vasan and Basilios Sideris demonstrate how to operate the lab instrument they developed over the course of the last year. Designed to allow scientists to better understand how radiation from low-level lasers affects cellular processes, the tool was repurposed from a 1970s era XY plotter.

Effecting Change: UH Engineering Students Aid Needy Hospitals Overseas
(February 24, 2009) Sick people thousands of miles away, in part, have University of Houston engineers to thank for the sterile syringes delivering their medicine and the donated ultrasound machines allowing them to see their babies for the first time. Through a partnership with Project Cure, a longtime nonprofit organization, the students from the UH Biomedical Engineering Society have worked to improve medical care in third world countries by better equipping health care providers overseas with the tools to fight disease.

Study by UH, Texas A&M Professors to Explore Bone Loss in Astronauts
(December 15, 2008) Daniel Martinez, associate professor in the department of health and human performance and the Cullen College’s biomedical engineering program, is working with lead investigator Harry Hogan and co-investigator Susan Bloomfield, both faculty at Texas A&M University, to study measures to counteract bone loss during space missions. All three are named on a roughly $1.1 million grant from NASA’s Human Research Program—nearly $265,000 of the total funding will support Martinez’s efforts.

NFL Grant Supports Gene Therapy Study to Benefit Athletes
(December 10, 2008) UH Cullen College of Engineering researchers Daniel Martinez and David Zimmerman have received an 18-month, $118,693 grant from the National Football League Charities to investigate the use of gene therapy to heal damaged ligaments. The treatment being developed could allow athletes playing in the National Football League a faster return to the field after injury.

Engineering Organizations Present Professor with High Honors
(May 21, 2008) Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical and mechanical engineering, has received two awards for achievements in his biomedical optics and imaging research. He received the 2008 Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the Houston Society for Engineering in Medicine and Biology in February and the Herbert Allen Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in April. In 2007, he received the U.S. Navy's Young Investigator Award.

Imaging Device to Benefit Patients of In Vitro Fertilization
(October 2, 2007) Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering with the UH Cullen College of Engineering, is developing an imaging device that could increase the success of in vitro fertilization. The research is in partnership with Michael Allon, a Houston-based doctor specializing in fertility issues. Their work is supported by a two-year, $250,000 grant from the Wallace Coulter Foundation, which specializes in funding translational research, i.e. research designed to move a technology from the lab to its use in real-world situations.

Biomedical Engineering Student Conducts Research Overseas
(September 21, 2007) Austin Head, junior biomedical engineering student at the UH Cullen College of Engineering, was selected to participate in Rice University's NanoJapan program, a research intensive program funded by the National Science Foundation. Head was among 15 other students chosen nationwide to spend 11 weeks in Japan this summer researching the various aspects of nanotechnology. While there, the students toured Japan, giving them the opportunity to learn about the Japanese culture.

Mechanical Engineering Renovates Biomedical Lab
(October 24, 2006) The Department of Mechanical Engineering has nearly completed the renovation of its Biomedical Engineering Core Research Lab, located on the first floor of Engineering Building 1. Over $600, 000 worth of equipment moved from the Connective Tissue Physiology Laboratory into the lab will provide faculty with an improved space to conduct advanced biomedical research, as well as create an interactive educational environment for students in the program.

Physicians and Engineers Pool Resources to Prevent Stroke
(May 8, 2006) Ralph Metcalfe, professor of mechanical engineering and deputy director of the UH biomedical engineering program, and his graduate student, Aishwarya Mantha, are working on a new tool to improve brain aneurysm treatment. Metcalfe and Mantha are working with physicians and scientists at the Methodist Neurological Institute (NI) to determine which brain aneurysms are at highest risk of rupture and could cause a stroke.

UH Biomedical Engineering Summer Internship Program a Success
(August 12, 2005) Biomedical engineering undergraduate students at the UH Cullen College of Engineering gained ‘real world’ experience while participating in a research-intensive summer internship program at The Methodist Hospital. The students explored several areas of study within the biomedical field, while researching under the direction of mentors in pathology, neurology, radiology, and cardiology laboratories. Opportunities have been made available for such collaborative educational internships through a 30-year partnership agreement between the University of Houston and The Methodist Hospital.

Distinguished Professor and Doctor Akhil Bidani Joins Faculty
(June 2005) Akhil Bidani joined UH as the John S. Dunn professor of biomedical engineering and professor of chemical and mechanical engineering. He is a professor of medicine and director of Pulmonary
and Critical Care at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

UH BioE Junior Wins Fellowship for Model of Human Vascular System
(June 20, 2005) The American Society of Artificial Internal Organs awarded a $500 fellowship to UH biomedical engineering junior Hassan Khalil. Written with the aid of Kamuran Kadipasaoglu, adjunct professor of biomedical engineering at UH and assistant director of the Cardiovascular Surgery Research Laboratories at the Texas Heart Institute, biomedical engineering program director Matt Franchek and deputy director Ralph Metcalfe, Khalil’s abstract detailed the research he has done with a model of the human vascular system. Though artificial organs have been in use for some time, Khalil’s model of the human vascular system will allow for new experimentation in artificial organ control.

New Medical Technology May Improve Treatment for Patients with Cerebral Aneurysms
(June 2005) Professor Ralph Metcalfe and his research students at UH are working with doctors at Baylor College of Medicine/The Methodist Hospital on new medical technology to identify brain aneurysms before they create strokes. As many as 15 million Americans are estimated to have unruptured cerebral aneurysms, which are ballooning weak spots in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain. Read this and more in the latest issue of Parameters magazine.

Metcalfe, Vekilov Named Deputy Directors of Biomedical Engineering Program
(May 13, 2004) The Biomedical Engineering Program is quickly attaining a full staff with director Matt Franchek naming Ralph Metcalfe and Peter Vekilov as deputy directors for the program.

New Biomedical Engineering Program Launched at UH
(June 16, 2003) Plans to begin a new Biomedical Engineering Program at UH cleared one last administrative hurdle recently when the Texas Coordinating Board granted its approval for a new undergraduate program in the field. The program will be launched at the UH Cullen College of Engineering this fall semester.