BME News

November 2, 2009

Duke Develops Nano-Scale Drug Delivery for Chemotherapy

DURHAM, N.C. -- Going smaller could bring better results, especially when it comes to cancer-fighting drugs. Duke University bioengineers have developed a simple and inexpensive method for loading cancer drug payloads into nano-scale delivery vehicles and demonstrated in animal models that this new nanoformulation can eliminate tumors after a single treatment. After delivering the drug to the tumor, the delivery vehicle breaks down into harmless byproducts, markedly decreasing the toxicity for the recipient. Nano-delivery systems have become ...

October 5, 2009

Understanding a Cell's Split Personality Aids Synthetic Circuits

DURHAM, N.C. -- As scientists work toward making genetically altered bacteria create living “circuits” to produce a myriad of useful proteins and chemicals, they have logically assumed that the single-celled organisms would always respond to an external command in the same way. Alas, some bacteria apparently have an individualistic streak that makes them zig when the others zag. A new set of experiments by Duke University bioengineers has uncovered the existence of “bistability,” in which an individual ...

September 11, 2009

Back in the Bicycle Seat Again

For Claude Flynn, long bicycle rides in the fresh air were therapy for the mind and exercise for the body. Every Sunday, she’d ride her bike 35 to 40 miles through the rolling Chatham County countryside south of Chapel Hill, N.C. Often, she would stop in a meadow, take in the sun, listen to the birds singing and enjoy a sandwich and bottled water. That all changed in 2003, when a car accident ...

August 20, 2009

Novel Polymer Could Improve Protein-Based Drugs

DURHAM, N.C. – A new method for attaching a large protective polymer molecule to a protein appears to improve protein drugs significantly. Bioengineers at Duke University developed the new approach and demonstrated in an animal model that the newly created protein-polymer combinations, known as conjugates, remained in circulation significantly longer than an unprotected protein. The scientists say they are encouraged that their findings represent a new strategy to improve the efficacy of protein drugs. Protein-based drugs are an ...

July 7, 2009

Finding the Constant in Bacterial Communication

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Rosetta Stone of bacterial communication may have been found. Although they have no sensory organs, bacteria can get a good idea about what’s going on in their neighborhood and communicate with each other, mainly by secreting and taking in chemicals from their surrounding environment. Even though there are millions of different kinds of bacteria with their own ways of sensing the world around them, Duke University bioengineers believe they have found a ...

June 18, 2009

Autonomous Robot Detects Shrapnel

DURHAM, N.C. – Bioengineers at Duke University have developed a laboratory robot that can successfully locate tiny pieces of metal within flesh and guide a needle to its exact location -– all without the need for human assistance. The successful proof-of-feasibility experiments lead the researchers to believe that in the future, such a robot could not only help treat shrapnel injuries on the battlefield, but might also be used for such medical procedures as placing and ...

June 16, 2009

Potential For Non-Invasive Brain Tumor Treatment

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University engineers have taken a first step toward a minimally invasive treatment of brain tumors by combining chemotherapy with heat administered from the end of a catheter. The proof-of-concept study demonstrated that it should be technically possible to treat brain tumors without the side effects associated with the traditional approaches of surgery, systemic chemotherapy or radiation. The bioengineers designed and built an ultrasound catheter that can fit into large blood vessels of the ...

May 10, 2009

Duke graduates 523 engineers in May 2009

Duke University awarded degrees to 523 undergraduate and graduate engineering students on May 10 in ceremonies beginning with a university-wide commencement celebration in Wallace Wade Stadium and ending with a Pratt School of Engineering ceremony in Duke Chapel. Pratt Dean Tom Katsouleas Bachelor of Science in Engineering diplomas to 279 students, including 12 who completed their work in December and one last September, before a crowd of parents, relatives and friends in the Chapel. Pratt also awarded ...

April 30, 2009

Pratt Junior Spins the Wheel

When a crowd of students pack themselves in front of the big-screen television at the Armadillo Grill, it’s usually to watch the Blue Devils compete against another university on the playing field or basketball court. However, they also recently gathered to view another type of competition -- to cheer on a Pratt biomedical engineering junior against other university students on the set of Wheel of Fortune. Alaina Pleatman, a native of West Bloomfield, Mich., who had ...

April 30, 2009

Limping Rat Provides Sciatica Insights

DURHAM, N.C. -- A newly developed animal model for the painful nerve condition known as sciatica should help researchers diagnose and treat it, according to Duke University bioengineers and surgeons. Sciatica is not a single disorder, but rather a diverse range of symptoms, such as numbness or pain from the lower back to the feet, radiating leg pain or difficulty in controlling the leg. It is often caused by compression, or pinching, of any of the ...

April 22, 2009

BME Doctoral Student Talks About Bionic Arm on 60 Minutes

Jon Kuniholm lost part of his right arm as the result of a roadside bombing in Iraq in 2005. Since that time, the retired Marine Corps officer has been researching new designs for functional limb prostheses as a doctoral student in biomedical engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering. As a vet and as a researcher -- he’s also co-founder of a company working on arm prostheses -- he was interviewed recently by the CBS program ...

April 1, 2009

Light Reveals Breast Tumor Oxygen Status

DURHAM, N.C. – Light directed at a breast tumor through a needle can provide pathologists with biological specifics of the tumor and help oncologists choose treatment options that would be most effective for that individual patient. Duke University bioengineers have developed a light-based system that can quickly and easily provide important information about oxygen levels within a tumor while it is still in place. The new system, based on diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, gives researchers important clues ...