BMES Webinar Series: Upcoming Webinars, Archives and Sponsorship Opportunities   

Join BMES on July 29, 2015 at 3:00 PM ET for the professional development webinar Translation, Intellectual Property and Venture Capital.  

The webinar will provide an introduction to what it takes to transfer technologies from an academic research setting into a start-up or corporate environment.    

For more information and to register, visit BMES E-Learning.

Please post and share the Intellectual Property Webinar flyer with BME faculty and colleagues.   

If you are a BMES member and missed the last webinar, How Good is Good Enough?, the archive is available on demand.  

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New cancer treatment: Sound waves gently cull circulating tumor cells from blood samples   

The capture and analysis of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients is a valuable tool for treatment decisions and therapy monitoring.  

Until recently, it was a huge challenge to capture these rare cells in a blood sample.   

In a new approach funded by NIBIB, bioengineers have developed a system that efficiently isolates CTCs using sound waves, without physical contact or damage to the cells, assuring that their original characteristics are maintained, according to an NIBIB article.   

The contact-free nature of the method offers the potential for more precise cancer treatment and monitoring, and new discoveries on how cancer spreads. 

Wichita State team develops remote heath system based on smartwatch 

Barry Lutz named 2015 Innovation Fellow at U of Washington 

Nanoscale cancer treatment developed at Duke could help kill deadly tumors     

Researchers at Duke University have devised a method for making a promising nanoscale cancer treatment even more deadly to tumors, according to a university article.

The technology allows an extremely thin layer of hydrogels to be deposited on the surface of nanoshells -- particles about a hundred nanometers wide designed to absorb infrared light and generate heat, according to the article.   

When heated, these special hydrogels lose their water content and release any molecules (such as drugs) trapped within.   

By depositing the hydrogels on tumor-torching nanoshells and loading the new coating with chemotherapeutic drugs, a new way to combat tumors is possible.   

The research is described in a paper published in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering. 

$50 million gift will expand and elevate Cornell biomedical engineering department     

A decade after its creation, Cornell's Department of Biomedical Engineering has received a $50 million endowment gift that will expand and elevate it as the Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, according to a university article.   

Representing the largest single philanthropic commitment by individual donors to one of the university's colleges in Ithaca, the gift is made by Nancy Meinig '62 and Peter Meinig '61, along with daughters Anne '87, Kathryn, MBA '93, and Sarah and their own families, the article states.   

"This is a pivotal moment for Engineering at Cornell," Lance Collins, the Joseph Silbert Dean of the College of Engineering said in the article.  

University of Florida researchers invent device that makes chemotherapy more personalized, efficient       

Two University of Florida researchers have invented a device that makes chemotherapy treatments more personalized, efficient and affordable, according to a University of Florida Health article.   

The miniaturized platform, known as a microarray, uses patients' cancer cells to test various doses and combinations of chemotherapy drugs, the article states.   

The device's breakthrough capability, its ability to work with a smaller number of cancer stem cells, is especially crucial because such cells are particularly rare, according to UF Health.  

Cancer stem cells comprise about 1 percent of a typical tumor, and other drug-testing methods require larger amounts of cells.  The device was developed by Biomedical Engineering Society members Benjamin G. Keselowsky, Ph.D., an associate professor in the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Department of Biomedical Engineering and Matthew R. Carstens, Ph.D., a post-doctoral associate in Keselowsky's laboratory.