Last Prompted Post: Synthesiss/Conclusion

Through this project I have discovered the scope of influence biomedical engineers have on the medical field. They build all the instruments that doctors use for their jobs. There are also tons of different options within the realm of biomedical engineering. They make a big enough impact to be ranked as the best job in America in 2012. I have learned a lot about the field in the last many weeks. the possibilities of this specialization of engineering is seemingly endless and has so many ways to help the progression of medicine.

                The medical field is heavily dependent on biomedical engineers. They create most everything that doctors use to treat patients. Biomedical engineers build devices that help doctors diagnose and treat patients. Some examples of these inventions are the camera pill that I have talked about and machines that can scan for cancer and try to eradicate it. The definition of biomedical engineering is “The applications of engineering to two categories: the engineering study of the human body in health and disease, and the development of engineering instrumentation and devices for medical research and practice” (Boddy). This means that biomedical engineers have an impact in nearly every medical advancement, in technology and processes. That is incredibly important as healthcare is an important field because it keeps us healthy and giving people more comfort for more days at the end of their lives.

                Another thing I learned was that there is a lot of variety in the kinds of things biomedical engineers actually do. There are some that need to know how the body works in order to make better and better devices for implementation in the body or to mimic the body’s movements for things like the eLEGS. Others might need to know much more computer science to create robots to assist with surgeries. And there are virtually infinite specializations that engineers can have. This makes it seem like a great profession because there is so much variety. There is a specialization for everybody who might want to pursue the profession.

One thing I learned about this field is that it is ranked as the best job to have in the United States (Best Jobs in America). This rank really makes a lot of sense. These engineers pretty much have it made, they know their work helps people get better or help doctor’s lives easier, they get a nice pay check and they have it relatively easy as far as stress goes. The worst part of the job is that they constantly have to catch up with technological advancements.

It makes sense however that engineers have to keep up with technology to make the best products. It is a field on the cutting edge of technology. That is one of the principle reasons I was drawn to the field in the first place. I liked learning about all the gadgets biomedical engineers make and that is why I focused so heavily on these gadgets during my free posts. I think throughout this project I have done a good job at writing lots about my opinions and my reflections on the things I have learned about. It is one of the main pieces of all of nearly all my posts. However I think I could have structured my thoughts better in my posts. I also think my posts could have been better if I had included pictures or graphics in my posts. When I went in I didn’t know anything about biomedical engineering. Through the course of this blog I have learned that the biomedical field is an incredibly important technologically driven field with so many varieties. There are so many ways to help people in this field. My next big project for myself will be figuring out which direction I will decide to take.

Works cited

Boddy, K., J. M. Courtney, J.D. S. Gaylor, T. Gilchrist, T.G. Grassie, and R.M. Kendi. A Textbook of   Biomedical Engineering. Ed. R. M. Kendi. Glaslow: Blackie, 1980. Print.

“Best Jobs in America”. CNN Money. Cable News Network. 29 October 2012. Web 13 October 2013.

Free Post 10: Robots Preforming Surgery

Imagine that you have a big surgery coming up. Now imagine it wouldn’t be doctors preforming the surgery. Now how do you feel? Would it change anything if you found out that your surgery would be carried out entirely by robots? Whether you like it or not this is a reality. Robots have completed an entire surgery including the anesthesiology. The robots put the patient to sleep and very precisely conducted a surgery removing the prostate of a patient. The use of robots is so that doctors can provide more accurate and precise surgical maneuvers. Dr Hemmerling, one doctor at the hospital that the robotic surgery occurred, said “Robots will not replace doctors but help them to perform to the highest standards” (Bates). The doctor said this to assure reporters that robotics will not replace human doctors. I think that doctors are necessary for many reasons. A doctor is needed to make diagnosis. I don’t think a robot could make correct diagnosis as often as an actual doctor. I think that to make some diagnosis there must be some ability to look at different information and make a diagnosis. It doesn’t seem like a robot could be able to interpret things such as bodily information, at least not for a long time in the future. I do think robots could be used very effectively to complete surgeries. Robots can make more accurate incisions that a human could never do. So I think robots are going to be a very important part of most surgeries in the future. However I think having an actual doctor in the room is going to be an important thing for a while as well I think problems can still occur during surgery, even if every part of the surgery is perfect. If a problem occurs will the robots be able to assess the situation and fix the problem? That is why I think doctors will not be replaced by robots. But it is great that robots can help with making surgeries better and better.

Works Cited

Bates, Clair. “Patient has prostate removed in world's first all-robotic surgery”. Mail Online. Associated Newspapers LDT. 20 Oct 2010. Web. 10 Nov 2013.

Prompted Post 10: Remix

The final prompted post for this blog asked to find a source of information by a professional. I found a video on YouTube where a biomedical engineering professor, named Marybeth Privitera, talked about traits that are necessary for biomedical engineers to possess. She talked about hoe creativity was actually one of the more important things a biomedical engineer can have. She said that they need this skill in order to produce new ideas to bolster the field of innovation. This interview tries to invent the idea that creativity is a very important part of being an engineer. The arrangement of this was in the form of a few answers to some questions an interviewer was asking Privitera. This video develops the idea that creativity is important by showing how it is so important not just saying that it is. If her responses were to be revised I imagine she might try and add even more back up and reasoning about how creativity is a necessity to have for engineers. The way she speaks has a style that emulates that she knew what she was talking about but she often seemed to struggle over the right words to use.

                This interview was most likely aimed at trying to appeal to college students or prospective college students. Its purpose is to try to tell the audience that the field of biomedical engineering deeply respects and actually requires creativity to keep the field as innovative as possible. I think that this interview could have been more successful with the message it relays. It seemed that it was not really so much the focus of the video and rather just the answer to the questions that were being asked.

Works Cited

“BMES IdeaLab 2011, Marybeth Privitera talks about creativity and biomedical engineering”. BMESociety. YouTube. YouTube. 28 June 2011. Web. 10 Nov 2013

Free Post 9: eLEGS

For my free post this week I found another invention off of a list of the 10 best biomedical inventions. I chose to look into something called eLEGS. I found the projects main sight and instead of reading about it I decided to mix things up and watch a video about the project instead. These legs are a robotic exoskeleton that can help a paralyzed person to walk. The bulk of the system is in a backpack type thing then there are long pieces that connect to large knee pieces then again down to the bottom of the feet. Once into the suit you would be able to stand on the feet and, with the aid of walkers, a person can walk. John Fogalin, who worked on the project, was excited about how this project encompassed lots of different fields. He said “It’s an integration of so many interesting talents: Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, programing, control, and when you bring all those together, that’s when you get a really innovative product” (Berkly Bionics). I think that the fact that this was a joint project between multiple disciplines was one of the cooler parts of this project. It is cool that so many different people came together to make such an amazing invention. The best thing about this project is that people who had lost their ability to walk now have hope that they can regain a majority of their movement. It must be so hard to be somebody who is healthy and mobile and then experience an accident that leaves you without the use of your legs. This invention can help bring people their lives back.

Work Cited

“Berkley Bionics: Introducing eLEGS”. Berkley Bionics. YouTube. YouTube. 6 Oct 2010. Web. 7 Nov 2013

Prompted Post 9: Importance of Biomedical Engineering.

This week I had to find an article on the internet discussing the importance of my field. The article I found discussed the importance of biomedical engineering in Asia. The article talks a lot about biomedical engineering as a whole before it delves into the topics I was looking for. The article shifts and begins discussing the importance of biomedical engineering in Asia. First it talks about how many institutions in Asia are now offering this subject as a major. Then the article talks about the many applications of biomedical engineering in the area. In places such as china an increase in professionals in this area of study is somewhat of a necessity. The article states, “an aging population and change in lifestyles have resulted in new diseases” (Importance of Biomedical Engineering in Asia). This means that more biomedical engineers are needed to make products and screening techniques to evolve China’s knowledge of medicine to keep up with their transition in disease prevalence due to their relatively recent industrial shift.

                This article shows how the Asian countries are in need of biomedical engineers. But it isn’t just Asian countries that need biomedical engineers; the whole world needs them to make medicine easier and more effective. The more engineers there are in the world the more brains can be put to the task of creating great inventions that will make tons of people’s lives that much easier. There is so many things that biomedical engineers can do to make people’s lives easier. They can prolong people’s lives so they can spend their last days with more comfort and make other products that can make it so that people can walk again after their leg has been amputated. Biomedical engineering is instrumental to the world of medicine.

Work Cited

“Importance of Biomedical Engineering in Asia”. Asia-Pacific Business and technology Report. Asia-Pacific Business and technology Report. 1 Aug 2010. Web. 7 Oct. 2013

Free Post 8: Camera Pills

An in ordinate amount of my “Free Posts” have been about cool inventions that fix problems in the body mainly though putting things into patients. But that is only part of the job of a biomedical engineer another big part is making it easier to spot these problems. That is why for this free post I will be talking about a pill. Only this isn’t a pill with medicine in it. It is a camera.

                This idea of swallowing a camera was made to screen for esophageal cancer. There are 2 different versions of this design. There are regular pills that can take fly by shots and is then passed through the body. The other method is a little bit more invasive. In the second method the pill is tethered so a doctor can move it up and down to get a better view of target areas.  The first patient who had this method tested on said that it “felt like swallowing a regular pill” (Camera In A Pill Offers Cheaper, Easier Window On Your Insides). The test subject swallowed the camera and the tether did not bother him. By using this screening technique patients don’t have to undergo anesthesia for esophageal cancer screening. This is because previously the screening techniques used were much more invasive and couldn’t be conducted easily on a conscious patient.

                One of the reasons I like doing this blog is because I like reading about really cool inventions. This is definitely an example of something I think is really cool. I think that this is a great example of one way that biomedical engineers have made the healthcare field better. There are a lot of problems that I have heard about in dealing with anesthesia and people can be very scared of being put under. So a process that can do the same things without the need for anesthesia sounds like a good step forward to me. I wonder if down the road it would ever be made practical to do surgeries without total anesthesia. The idea of being awake while surgery is being performed is scary to me, I am just wondering if science could make that happen at some point.

Work Cited

"Camera In A Pill Offers Cheaper, Easier Window On Your Insides."ScienceDaily. University of Washington. 25 Jan. 2008. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

Free Post 8: Hands-on Activity

For this week’s post I was instructed to find a hand-on activity. However, this proved to be very difficult to do since work in this field is rather complicated.  My best opportunity for   doing something hands on happened last weekend when my cousin was in town. He mentioned he had some work to do and I asked if I could watch, sort of like job shadowing. This cousin of mine was the same one who I interviewed several weeks ago for another post in this class.

                The work my cousin had to get done was finishing up a design for a new product concept for his company. His work was done by using a program on his computer that made designing 3 dimensional objects very easy. I was partially familiar with the program because I had used a very similar version in a drafting class I took in high school. I am sure I made his work take much longer than it should have because I asked so many questions. But I am (pretty) sure he didn’t mind.

                I know that my cousin is not a biomedical engineer, but biomedical engineers still have to make designs for their products just like my cousin does. I know there are lots of differences in the smaller details that I missed out on but I did get some insight into the precision that engineers put into their work.  My cousin spent several minutes debating on how to fit 2 components of a motor together within certain ranges of space that could be allowed in this project. I think this is one of a few observations I made that would be hard to make just from talking to him about his job. Perhaps you could tell that their job has to be very precise, but you don’t really have a firm understanding of this before you see an engineer move pieces centimeters to make a large difference in various areas of the design. 

Free Post 7: Bioimplant Materials

In my materials engineering class we recently finished a series of lectures discussing biomaterials. In these talks my professor talked about a great may ways to use materials to be implanted in the human body. Most of his talks revolved around the use of metals in the body. He also talked about ceramics and plastics the rest of the time. For this post I would like to outline what I learned of the course of this unit.

For hard tissue replacements and augmentations, doctors will use ether metals or ceramics. Hard tissue would be pretty much limited to bones and the areas around joints. A common metal used for these applications is a titanium alloy that includes vanadium and aluminum. They use this alloy because it is very strong and has a relatively high ability to bend. Another major reason this alloy is used in the body is because it wound corrode inside the body like iron would. The down fall of these applications is that metals are very heavy and since they are so strong, they can lead to a weakening of surrounding hard tissue. Ceramics are used because they are also very strong and they are inert. This means they won’t react with other components of the body that might cause problems. Because ceramics are porous, surrounding tissues can grow into the gaps in the ceramic implant. This means that there is no need to secure the implant with something such as screws like is necessary with metals. Another really cool thing about ceramics is that their chemical makeup can be made to be very similar to that of natural bone. If the concentrations of elements in the implant are close enough to the natural bone, the implant can actually become part of the bone structure over time. The biggest flaws with ceramics are that they are brittle in certain applications of force and can break in these cases. They are also very difficult to shape very accurately. Because of these flaws metals are more commonly used to replace bone tissue.

Plastics are also used for applications in the body. Plastics are used because they are lightweight and can be very flexible and are very easy to shape. Scientists also have lots of ways to make different plastics to they they can be made to fit a variety of applications. One application of plastics in the body is artery replacements. Arteries can be replaced with a plastic tube that is very flexible and coated with a body protein that makes it be accepted by the body. Another application is in artificial organs such as many models of artificial hearts, which I have talked about in previous posts. Another common application is in the socket of hip replacements. A plastic cup is used because the common titanium alloy scratches very easily when it rubs against other hard materials so a plastic cup can prevent the shaving of the hip replacement.

Prompted Post 7: Ethical Arguments in the Field

In the world of Biomedical engineering there is a controversy about human enhancement. Human enhancement can be defined as to” improve the state of an organism beyond its normal healthy state” (Bostram). This article also talks a lot about how defining enhancement id difficult because of the fact that some enhancements may be therapeutic and not necessarily enhancements at all, because therapies are designed just to bring an organism from a state of disrepair to a healthy state. The main parts that are looked at when it comes to human improvement are: life extension, physical enhancement, mood and personality enhancement, cognitive enhancement, and designer children. The two sides of this argument are biological conservatives and transhumans. Biological conservatives are against human improvement and transhumans are for it.

Biological conservatives: These people believe that it is unethical to try and make the human population better than it is. They believe that making these transformations for people would be unfair for everyone who couldn’t afford the processes that would improve themselves. This would create a very wide and distinct physical difference between the rich and the poor. Another thing biological conservatives think is that there would still be drastic differences between people naturally. The article talks of one example regarding cognitive ability the writers said that it is unfair if a person is below average intelligence and receives some sort of treatment that would increase their intelligence then there would still be people who were smarter than this person that had not been exposed to this treatment. This kind of enhancement can easily be viewed as cheating in an academic sense (Bostram).

Transhumans: They believe that human potential has not been reached and that with the enhancements that are scientifically possible, and on their way, we as a species might be able to do the greatest things that humanity can accomplish. They push for the funding of any technology that could alleviate human suffering and try to improve life for as many people as possible. This group also advocates for the well-being of all sentient being that may come about be it humans another species that gains sentience or when and If humanity encounters another sentient race (The Transhumanist Declaration).

Works Cited

Bostrom, Nick, Rebecca Roache. “Ethical Issues in Human Enhancement.” nickbostrom.com. New Waves in Applied Ethics. 2008 Web. 20 October 2013

Baily, Doug, Anders Sandberg, Gustavo Alves, Max More, Holger Wagner, Natasha Vita-More, Eugene Leitl, Bernie Staring, David Pearce, Bill Fantegrossi, den Otter, Ralf Fletcher, Kathryn Aegis, Tom Morrow, Alexander Chislenko, Lee Daniel Crocker, Darren Reynolds, Keith Elis, Thom Quinn, Mikhail Sverdlov, Arjen Kamphuis, Shane Spaulding, and Nick Bostrom “The Transhumanist Declaration.” Humanityplus.org. Humanity+.  March 2009. Web. 20 October 2013

Free Post 6: #1 in America!

This week I was wondering about how the profession of being a biomedical engineer was paid. I know it requires a lot of schooling to be one so I would think, or at least hope, that they get paid pretty well. So my first thought was to go to Google. My search was for “biomedical engineer jobs”. The top hit is an article from CNN. This article ranked the top 100 professions in America. And what was number one? Biomedical Engineer was ranked as the best job to have in America during 2012.the article briefly describes some statistics, such as median pay, max pay, and job growth. The profession is also broadly described. Then the article has a few short sections about how to become eligible for this kind of job as well as why it is a good job, and lastly what the hard part of the job is. The end of the piece about biomedical engineering has a letter grade for various quality of life categories.

The page says that it is a good job because it is high paying and there are a lot of different places a biomedical engineer could work. And at the bottom of the page the grade rankings gave this job an A for personal satisfaction, as well as benefit to society. It also received B’s for stress level and flexibility. The biggest problem, according to this article, is that professionals need to spend lots of time to keep up to date on the new advancements that their peers are making.

I was honestly surprised by some parts of this article. I was not really expecting that this profession would be ranked #1. I knew it was a good job but I wasn’t expecting a gold medal. I also found it surprising that this job got a B for stress. It seems to me that people would be more stressed out because they are making things that could be very harmful to people if their design fails once implemented. Just today I learned in class that a hip replacement that was used to replace around 10,000 hips had an 80-90% failure rate because of a problem with cleaning the hips. This led to most everyone needing a second procedure. The recipients led a law suit against the prosthetics company bankrupting them.

I was not at all surprised that this job was ranked highly, partially, because it allows engineers to improve the quality of life for many people by working with cutting edge technology. This is part of the reason I was drawn to the profession for my blog. I wanted to know about all the fancy do-hickeys that these engineers make. I was also not surprised that the biggest problem with this job was that engineers have to keep up on technological developments. The way technology is advancing, things become obsolete in record time. In this climate it makes it a necessity to keep track of what processes and programs are still relevant.

Work cited

“Best Jobs in America”. CNN Money. Cable News Network. 29 October 2012. Web 13 October 2013.

Prompted Post 6: Analyze an Argument

For the first of this week’s post, I found an article that talk about electrical interfaces that can send electrical signals to neurons and communicate with sensory neurons. However, the author makes a claim that there are huge amounts of improvement that can be made down the road of this technology. The author of this article describes multiple modern day neural interface electrodes during the bulk of the article. At the end he begins to talk about the cutting edge technology relating back to his into section of the article. (Grill).

To me it seems that this is a pretty easy argument to back up. Of course we can improve new electronic technology. This tech is already cutting edge but there are lots of possibilities in the future. People have known about the wheel for long enough to where there is not much we can do to make it better. A device that can communicate with the nervous system is being held back by so much at this point in time. Because scientists still know so little about how the brain works, there are very definite limits to what a device like this can do. There are a lot of great things that can happen with this technology. It is being tested that such an anural device could restore a neural connection to parts of the body that have been cut off from the brain restoring their functionality. This technology could save lives and make many lives that much better. Down the road, albeit a long way, perhaps we could make computers that can think like people. Given we know enough about the functioning of the brain and have the technological capabilities, there is almost no limit to what could happen with this technology.

Work cited

Grill, Warren M. "Neural interfaces: communicating with the nervous system through implanted devices requires engineering solutions to biomedical problems." American Scientist 98.1 (2010): 48+. General OneFile. Web. 11 Oct. 2013.

Free Post 5: Bionic Contact Lens

For this week’s free post I was looking around for some other cool biomedical inventions. I found on a list of great inventions that there was contact lenses that uses tiny LED’s and can show information such as maps and other things into the visual field and it appears that the information floats out in front of the eye. This sounded very cool so I tried to look into it more but instead stumbled upon a related invention. I found an article about a contact lens for blind people. I know what you are thinking,” why would a blind person need corrective lenses?” Well this is not a traditional contact lens. It is worn over the eye and is connected to a camera and the contract makes minute movements and, much like brail, a person can be taught to read these movements.

 I find this fascinating. I think it is such an interesting way to try and help the visually impaired. The article says the cornea of the human eye has 600 times more tactile receptors than the human fingertip. This seems like a statement that is taken a bit out of context. But if that is accurate I have no reason to believe that a cornea couldn’t read. The article also says that healthy people can distinguish things through the device after as little as 5 minutes. I do have another thing that I have a hard time getting my head around is how this device is tolerated being on the eye. I wear contact lenses. And I know it was a struggle to get used to them and they aren’t supposed to be felt.  Based on my experiences, I would have to believe that wearing something like this would be agonizingly uncomfortable.  The article also stated that the device has only been tested on healthy people. So I am wondering if there would be a difference in how a blind person would interpret the tactile images. Although it might be safe to say that they would take to the product very well seeing as how people with sensory defects tend to have their other senses increased to make up for the deficit.

Works Cited

Kloosterman, Karina. “Bionic Contact Lenses Turn Touch Into Vision” ISRAEL21c. israel21c.org. 23 July 2013. Web. 6 October 2013.

Prompted Post 5: Code of Ethics

For this week’s post I found the code of ethics for the Biomedical Engineering Society. This Particular code was approved by the society in February of 2004. The code is as follows:

Code of Ethics

Biomedical engineering is a learned profession that combines expertise and responsibilities in engineering, science, technology, and medicine. Since public health and welfare are paramount considerations in each of these areas, biomedical engineers must uphold those principles of ethical conduct embodied in this Code in professional practice, research, patient care, and training. This Code reflects voluntary standards of professional and personal practice recommended for biomedical engineers.

Biomedical Engineering Professional Obligations

Biomedical engineers in the fulfillment of their professional engineering duties shall:

1. Use their knowledge, skills, and abilities to enhance the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Strive by action, example, and influence to increase the competence, prestige, and honor of the biomedical engineering profession.

Biomedical Engineering Health Care Obligations

Biomedical engineers involved in health care activities shall:

1. Regard responsibility toward and rights of patients, including those of confidentiality and privacy, as their primary concern.
2. Consider the larger consequences of their work in regard to cost, availability, and delivery of health care.

Biomedical Engineering Research Obligations

Biomedical engineers involved in research shall:

1. Comply fully with legal, ethical, institutional, governmental, and other applicable research guidelines, respecting the rights of and exercising the responsibilities to colleagues, human and animal subjects, and the scientific and general public.
2. Publish and/or present properly credited results of research accurately and clearly.

Biomedical Engineering Training Obligations

Biomedical engineers entrusted with the responsibilities of training others shall:

1. Honor the responsibility not only to train biomedical engineering students in proper professional conduct in performing research and publishing results, but also to model such conduct before them.
2. Keep training methods and content free from inappropriate influence from special interests.

Some of my beliefs are mirrored by this code of ethics.  From the first section about professional obligations, I whole-heartedly believe that a position like this is responsible for improving the quality of life for anybody that their field can reach. This relates to one of the sections from the second category relating to engineers in the health care field. This part talks about the duty of engineers to consider the applicability of their work as in the cost and availability of their work. During my free posts I have often considered cost of the advancements I have looked into. To me it seems as if the engineers could have put more work into their creations being made available to everyone. In the case with the artificial hearts that brand hasn’t been available for years even though it is more effective than it was supposed to be.  Another example is from the section about training and keeping training free of special interests. I think it is a good thing to mention and uphold in the code of ethics. I think it could be expanded, however. I believe that all of a bioengineers work should be carried out with the intent of improving the quality of life for everyone they can and not just a paycheck. I think that this is an idea that should be applied to every professional field it can.

        One thing I am doing in college to prepare for this field is learning about the field. This will help me in a variety of areas of fulfilling the code of ethics. One in particular is the very first obligation. By going to school I hope I am gaining knowledge and skills I can apply to the field in hopes of making a grand new product that has the capacity to help and many people as possible. Another aspect of the code is being covered by this class in particular. School is teaching me how to present my findings accurately. For this class we do a fair amount of research, with more to come, and I am honing my skills in stating what I have found and how it relates to my overall topic. Lastly I am going to school to learn what the guidelines and rules of the profession are. This way I can adhere to several parts of the code and pest of all not spend time in jail.

Works Cited

"Biomedical Engineering Society Code of Ethics (2004)." Codes of Ethics Collection. N.p., 24 Oct. 2011. Web. 06 Oct. 2013.

Free Post 4: Artificial Bone Marrow

After talking with a friend about this blog assignment, I had the idea of looking into artificial bone marrow. I found an article from Science Daily describing just that. Researchers at the University of Michigan created a substance that could make human red blood cells and various types of white blood stem cells. The substance was even made in to a structure resembling actual human bone marrow. The structure built around a clear plastic structure that had spherical gaps throughout the structure then bone marrow seed sells were placed across the artificial structure. The reason this structure is porous is because in the human body there are blood vessels that travel through the gaps in the bone marrow to collect all the new blood cells. Unfortunately this specific substance was not made for implementation into the human body. The purpose of the substance was to test what effect cancer treatments had on the operation of the marrow cells because historically cancer treatment inhibits the function of bone marrow cells, leaving a cancer patient open to bacterial infections and other illnesses. Even though it wasn't made for humans this system was implanted into mice and the artificial setup successfully created human blood cells in the mice and blood vessels grew through the set-up.

                I was actually surprised that I found this article as easily as I did; I just typed artificial bone marrow into goggle. I had no idea if it actually existed. I had thought that people had actually made new cells or something that pumped out blood cells so I was a little disappointed to find out it was the same cells just put on to an artificial structure. However I thought it was really interesting that when this was put into mice that blood vessels grew through the artificial structure. Because of this information I am confused as to why this has never been tried on humans. I am sure there are applications where people have trouble making blood. A person who has lost their legs might have this problem since the femur is where the most bone marrow is located in humans. Perhaps an amputee might need some extra blood making capabilities. I am sure there are other instances where artificial bone marrow could save lives. Another thing that this article didn’t talk about is other studies that may be looking into a similar application in humans. Or what the cost might be. I imagine that it would be incredibly expensive to introduce enough to make much of a difference in the overall cardio vascular system. So perhaps applicability is why this hasn't been attempted or been deemed important enough to be mentioned in this article. I also would have liked this article to go into more detail about how cancer drugs affect bone marrow cells. I think it also would have been nice if the article had more explanation of the white blood cell’s ability to fight infections and even cancer cells. However, I had some previous knowledge of this topic due to an HIV/AIDS presentation I did last year. Over all I was interested in this article I just would have liked more detail.

Works Cited

University of Michigan. "Artificial Human Bone Marrow Created In A Test Tube." ScienceDaily, 23 Dec. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2013.

Prompted Post 3: Interview a Professional

For this post I interviewed my cousin. Since he is working and had a rather hectic weekend, I asked my questions by phone.  He is a mechanical engineer at a tree care and forestry product manufacturer. I talked to him about his job along with what kind of writing he does. We also spoke about the transition from college to the work place since he is a recent graduate.

 My first question was, quite simply, what do you do? He told me he is responsible for creating project designs of ether current product modifications or making plans for completely new products. For instance one of the products they make are wood chippers ranging from residential sizes, up to huge industrial wood chippers that destroy large trees. He told me that in this particular occupation that lots of his work is actually centered around 3D planning software. However, he does have to do the occasional calculation to see if using certain parts will work in certain applications and calculating how long this part might last.

                Next I asked him what his favorite part of his job was. He told me his favorite part was bringing an idea into a design and putting all the pieces together on the computer. I think doing something like this would be really cool. I have taken a class where we used similar software in a drafting class and I really enjoyed working with that program.

                My third question was “what are your biggest challenges?” His response was that sometimes his instructions are rather vague, and it is very difficult to try to design like this. For instance he might only have a small idea to work with, often with very unclear requirements, and he has to make a full design for something when he doesn't know exactly what this idea is expected to be. But it is the job he said.

                Fourth I asked “what is something you wish you had known about the job when you started?” He wished he would have known to ask more questions when he started. Being new he didn’t want to seem so green to his more experienced coworkers. However by doing this he took longer to find his way around the job.

                Next I got into the writing part of his job. He told me he mostly writes emails to people in other departments. These questions are usually clerical things, like what is meant by this or that and what part number is this. He also occasionally writes reports for new materials or process for the job.

Then it came up about what he does to revise and edit his work. What he said he usually does, in the case of emails, is he will write the email then do other work for a few minutes and revisit the email and once he is satisfied he will send it off.

After this we were just talking about the differences between working and the classroom. He thought that you don’t really need most of the actual things you learn in school; however, school is important to get people ready for working in a professional place. Most of what is important in school is learning skills to be successful if the work place and you wind up relearning most everything about what you need for the job at on sight training.

Free Post 3: Artificial Hearts

Part of the reason I chose to do my blog about bioengineering is because I was interested in prosthetics and implants. So this week I decided to look into artificial hearts. I found a great article about it through a website called How Stuff Works. I learned a lot about how these hearts work, and what it takes to get them put in.

The only successful hearts are called AbioCore hearts. These hearts are roughly the size of a grape fruit. The operate through a hydraulic pump that pumps blood to the lungs then the rest of the body. This differs from a normal heart in that a natural heart pumps to both at the same time. It is powered by a battery implanted into the patient’s abdomen along with a controller that regulates the speed of the heart. This battery has a life span of about 40 minutes without being charged. Luckily there is an external battery that is easy to charge the battery with. This is connected to the external battery through a nifty contraption that uses magnetic coils to transfer the power to leads across the skin wireless. This means that the internal system is not actually connected to anything external.

These hearts have only been used sparsely for a variety of reasons. First the procedure to replace the native heart with this new one is a grueling 7 hour procedure. Secondly their use is restricted to people who have been rejected for natural hearts, have a life expectancy of 30 days or less, and suffer from severe cardiac failure. This type of heart transplant has only been attempted 12 times. The patients have an average survival time of several months with the device. This is outstanding because the heart was only designed to double the survival time of the patients. Instead of living an extra month they live an extra 4 or 5 months before they die.

When I first read this article I was surprised that the artificial heart was a fairly uncommon thing. I thought that it seemed like a device everybody would want. Granted it has more complications than a heart transplant. However, there are thousands of heart transplants done every year and there have only been 12 artificial implants done. I understand that these procedures are incredibly expensive, with the device and manpower required, but I think more than 12 patients with qualifications for the heart could afford it. I also read that the last time one of these surgeries was preformed was in 2004. It is currently restricted by the Food and Drug Administration. The hearts is being pushed to be sold without approval by the FDA.

Works Cited

Bonsor, Kevin. ”How Artificial Hearts Work” How Stuff Works. Discovery. 2011. Web. 19 Seprember 2013.

Free Post 2: Synthetic Proteins

Today I was looking around the internet and I came across a blog that was talking about how bioengineers have discovered proteins that can bond with certain cells in a person’s body. One example was one that can bond with cells in a person’s respiratory system that will render it impossible for the influenza virus to be transmitted into that cell. In untreated systems the flu can attach its self to the outside of a healthy cell by interacting with a certain protein on the outside of the cell. The cell then lowers the pH around the virus and subsequently the bonding protein. The change in pH changes the makeup of the protein and this allows the flu virus to release its genetic material into the cell. This now infected cell is then used by the virus to replicate its genetic material to make more viruses. The bioengineers were able to find a protein in nature that can bind to the same protein that attracts the flu virus. This way the flu has no way to become associated with the cell and release its genetic material. Other ways this can work is by creating proteins that actually bond with viruses. Most of these proteins are still in testing or just theoretical. However, there is a good possibility that if these proteins are successful and practical enough to make, then these proteins will be at the forefront of the war on viruses.

I think that this is a really incredible thing that people can do. We have come far enough to look into our own bodies on a microscopic level and pick out how we get sick in some cases. Then what we do is we fix it. I think that is just fantastic that humans can do that. And although this article didn’t go into the topic, I would think that this sort of treatment would be fairly long lasting and could potentially work continuously for the length of the life of one of these cells.  I am also wondering what kind of problems this protein treatment could potentially cause. I wonder what kind of problems could be caused to the cells. Would this extra protein cause any problems by not facilitating normal cell functions? Why is this protein on the outside of the cell in the first place if not to allow things into the cell? What repercussions would be caused by bonding another protein to it? I am also wondering what kind of delivery method would be used for these proteins. I can see them being an inhalant. In the case of the flu virus in the respiratory system so that is my best guess as to how this would work. I just wonder if inhaling this would cause any irritation in the lungs. If it came in shot form would injecting proteins act differently in other places of the body and cause other problems? 

Works Cited

“Synthetic Proteins Could Serve As Next Generation of Antivirals.” The Biomedical Blog: Engineering. The Biomedical Blog, 8 June 2012. Web. 15 September 2013

Prompted Post 2 Audience And Purpose: Blog- Academic Article

This week I considered style and delivery of another biological engineering blog and an article written by a biological engineering professional. The goal of this exercise is to assess what the writer’s purpose and audience were. To begin I should define what is meant by the author’s style and delivery.  Style is pretty much the writer’s way of writing. A fiction writer would have a much different way of writing when put in contrast to the writer of a technical manual.  The delivery is how the piece of writing is presented. To use the same example as earlier, a fiction writer would most likely present their work in a book or perhaps an audio recording of some celebrity reading the book aloud. The technical manual would most likely be in a small flip book type setup or a brochure type setup.

Secondly, the author’s purpose and audience are also rather simple. The purpose is what the writer planned on accomplishing by writing what they wrote. The fiction writer published their work with the purpose of entertaining their audience. The manual writer put together his piece with the purpose of instructing the operator of whatever the manual was written for on how to properly use the object.
Now down to business for my blog I chose a random post from the front page of the forum. The blog is called “The Biomedical Blog: Engineering”. The post I chose was called “Are cancers a cellular ‘safe mode’? Why do these diseases exist?”.  This post outlined cancers and talked about how they were entirely different from most other diseases. It then got into a new theory about why the disease exists in the first place. This theory has its base in evolution. All life was once one celled and when something in an animal cell breaks it somehow reverts to a primal mode where it tries to outcompete the cells around it without the normal limitations of a normal cell (Simkus).

For the more professional article I decided to use one from my previous post because it fit what I was looking for perfectly. The article was called “Artificial Red Blood Cells” . This article began by describing the many stipulations that were put in place to make sure the “blood” was practical. For instance one requirement was for it to have a shelf life of one year at minimum. Then it described two different types of artificial bloods that engineers have produced. The first one is a chemical called perfluorocarbon. This chemical emulsifies blood and circulates it around the body. The second chemical is called a Hemoglobin-Based Oxygen Carrier. These chemicals bond to oxygen then break down after a relatively short time to release the oxygen to the body (Alberg).

The style of the blog was pretty laid back and used references to computers, obviously aimed at Generation X people. The delivery of this was in a very short blog post. This also implies that it was aimed at a younger crowd of internet savvy kids with short attention spans. I would think that the purpose of this piece was to give people a rundown of some interesting cancer research. I personally would like to know more about the topic.

The academic piece describing artificial red blood cells had a very scholarly style to it. The author liked to use big, sophisticated words to get his information out there. The delivery style was a relatively short report on what the scoop with these artificial blood substitutes were all about.I would wager that this article was for other academic people or other Biomedical engineers, based on the language used. The purpose seemed to be to describe what the capabilities and current drawbacks of these blood mimicking compounds.

Works Cited

Simkus, Glen.  “Are cancers a cellular “safe mode”? Why do these diseases exist?” The Biomedical Blog: Engineering. The Biomedical Blog. 18 July 2013. Web. 11 September 2013.

Alberg, Timothy. “Artificial Red Blood Cells” Biomedical Engineering Program. University of Rohde Island. Web. 11 September 2013

Free Post 1: More Answers

Since I still had some questions left from my first prompted post. I thought I would answer them in this post.these are the questions I asked in my earlier post that couldn't be answered by the textbook I checked out of the library. I am going to do some poking around on the internet and see what kind of answers I can come up with

• Do biomedical engineers work more in Hospitals or laboratories?

After looking into this I found that biomedical engineers tend to work very closely with medical professionals, however, it was unclear as to where they tended to work the most. One site said that biomedical engineers commonly worked in hospitals, research laboratories, universities, and large industrial companies. Working at a university and in an industrial company were both places I had not initially thought of when I first pondered where some one of this profession would work. I don't know why I didn't think of those places it seems so obvious to me in retrospect.

• Have they made artificial blood?

I had heard in passing one time that biomedical engineers had created artificial blood and I have been wondering about it since. It turns out that they have done it. Engineers have made replacements for red blood cells in their ability to carry oxygen around the body. One type of blood replacement is based on perfluorocarbons. These chemicals dissolve oxygen and carry it around the body this dissolved oxygen is then biologically available for cells in the body. Currently these chemicals seem to be a last resort therapy since testing still needs to be done with both major types. to see if there are real negative effects on the body due to their use.

• How do they make prosthetic limbs that can read muscle impulses?

I have found out that this is only one of the few ways a functional prosthetic can work. One of these ways is by attaching cables to other parts of the body. For instance with the loss of a hand a cable could be brought to the opposite shoulder then when this shoulder is moved in certain ways it would pull the cable and make a prosthetic hand move in simple ways. The way I was first interested in was related to moving a limb just through making muscle movements based on what those muscles used to to. What I found out was that this only works if the muscles can still be contracted which is fairly rare among amputations. The prosthetics work by measuring the electrical impulses caused by the muscle contractions picked up by electrodes.the limb can then use a motor to move the limb based on which muscles are flexed.

• What is the history of prosthetic limbs?

I actually found the answer to this question when reading about the answer to the question above this one. prosthetic limbs were rumored to have been around for thousands of years but the first documented ones were from Greece, where they attached iron arms or hands on to the body. These couldn't move but they were a start. This technique was used in Europe through the dark ages. However, the oldest prosthetic ever recovered came from Egypt. A 3000 year old mummy who had a prosthetic toe crafted out of wood and leather. Peg legs and hook hands, as made famous by pirates, were a common treatment across Europe because they were so easy to get materials for. Not many advances really came until the use of anesthetics came about and doctors could make better amputations leading to better ability to outfit patients with prosthetics.

• What amount of the human body could be safely replaced with prosthetics in this day and age?

Albeit, this is a weird question to ask, but growing up being in love with Star Wars I just have to find out how much of a Darth Vader we could make today. Today we have rudimentary and basic forms of prosthetics in comparison to this science fiction example. We have limbs that can respond to existing muscle contractions. We can also make prosthetic organs such as kidneys a hearts and lungs. Currently scientists and biomedical engineers are working on models of brains so that they can make better decisions about brain operations such as severing the corpus callosum in operations to treat seizures in epileptic patients. So, granted you have enough time and money, you can replace almost any part of your body if the need arises.

Sources
Alberg, Timothy. "Artificial Red Blood Cells." University of Rhode Island Department of Electrical, ......Computer, and Biomedical Engineering. University of Rhode Island, n.d. Web. 8 Sept. 2013.
"Biomedical Engineer FAQ's." UCONN: Biomedical Engineering Department. University of Connetticut, ......2011. Web. 8 Sept. 2013.

Clements, Isaac P. "How Prosthetic Limbs Work." HowStuffWorks. Discovery, 25 June 2008. Web. 08 ......Sept. 2013.
University of California - Santa Barbara. "Synthetic blood platelets developed."ScienceDaily, 30 May 2012. ......Web. 9 Sep. 2013.

Prompted Post 1: 10 Questions About Biomedical Eginering

This week I asked 10 questions about bioengineering. After I had my questions ready I found a textbook about bioengineering to try and answer my questions. This text book is simply called “A Textbook of Biological Engineering” edited by R.M. Kendi. My questions were as follows:

• What is biomedical engineering?   
• Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?  
• Do biomedical engineers work more in Hospitals or laboratories?
• Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?           
• Have they made artificial blood?
• Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?        
• How do they make prosthetic limbs that can read muscle impulses?
• What is the history of prosthetic limbs?
• What amount of the human body could be safely replaced with prosthetics in this day and age?
• Does a biomedical engineer also help make and design surgical equipment?

I found answers for some of my questions in this textbook. This Text book used more technical jargon that made it rather difficult to tell if what i was looking for actually appeared in the text. I also found that some of the questions I had asked seemed to have some overlapping answers. This reflects my primary interest area within the field of Bioengineering. However, some of my questions were not answered by the text book. This happened for a variety of reasons. Some couldn't be answered because the book was simply too old to have answers to questions that are as modern as they are. Another reason I couldn't find an answer was because it didn't relate to the actual science as much as it did the logistics of the professional field. I think that these answers would be really easy to find by surfing the web and locating professional document that are more current. These are the questions and the answers I found in the book as well as my short responses to what I had found:                                                                                                                                                

• What is biomedical engineering?

“The applications of engineering to two categories: the engineering study of the human body in health and disease, and the development of engineering instrumentation and devices for medical research and practice” in my words this means that it is the mix of studying how the human body works and how to fix it when it breaks, and maintain it in health.

• Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?

No they do a lot more than make people bionic and artificial. Before looking into the topic I thought that a large portion of what bioengineers did was make bionic and prosthetic limbs and artificial hearts and other such things. They also study how the human body works and where stress is on the body during activity. They also make machines that assist medical professionals in their jobs.

• Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?

Yes. In addition to just MIR machines bioengineers make all types of imaging equipment to try to make an easier machine to get good results for medical professionals. Bioengineers also have to study how the medical equipment might affect the body. For instance with a pacemaker for an irregular heart the engineers have to know how the electoral impulses of the body may be interrupted by the presence of the electrical currents produced by the pacemaker

• Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?

It is a mix called Bionics. Bionics is defined as “the study of engineering mechanisms of the biological processes and their applications in engineering” by this specific textbook. To me this means that this is how people can make things to augment the human body.

Citation
Boddy, K., J. M. Courtney, J.D. S. Gaylor, T. Gilchrist, T.G. Grassie, and R.M. Kendi. A Textbook of   .......Biomedical Engineering. Ed. R. M. Kendi. Glaslow: Blackie, 1980. Print.