News
Unlike lower vertebrates, mammals are unable to repair their adult hearts after injuries that include heart attacks. This inability in humans leads to heart failure — a deadly and costly disease that affects more than 5 million Americans.
Biomedical engineers believe they can aid the failing heart by using pluripotent stem cells to grow heart muscle cells outside of the body, and then injecting those muscle cells or adding a patch made from those cells, at or near the site of the dead heart tissue.
Biomedical engineering chair Jianyi “Jay” Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., is featured for his research on patches for damaged heart muscle cells following heart attacks, in the Summer 2019 issue of UAB Magazine.
The fifth annual NIH Cardiovascular Bioengineering (CVBE) Symposium was held in Sydney, Australia on March 1-2, 2019. The symposium continues to be unique in the world, featuring a combination of top international researchers and trainees in cardiovascular bioengineering.
Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer. The College of Fellows is comprised of the top two percent of medical and biological engineers.