BME News

July 1, 2008

Glass Named Senior Associate Dean for Education at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering

Professor Jeffrey T. Glass has been appointed Senior Associate Dean for Education, Dean Tom Katsouleas announced on July 1, 2008. He succeeds Tod Laursen, who served in that capacity since 2003 and will now become chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science. "Jeff has the ideal background to help the faculty and the departments to develop innovative and exciting new educational programs that respond to the nation’s need for engineers that will be ...

June 19, 2008

Smart Home Gets Top Environmental Building Score

Residence hall/laboratory receives state's first platinum LEED rating DURHAM, NC -- The Home Depot Smart Home at Duke University, a 10-person student residence hall for green living and learning, has achieved a top-level platinum standard for its design from the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. The building becomes the first in North Carolina to achieve that standard. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The 6,000-square foot-residence, designed by students and advisers, earned 59 ...

June 6, 2008

Students' Plan to Tackle Epileptic Seizures

By Richard Merritt Seizures, the often frightening and historically misunderstood outward manifestations of epilepsy, have long challenged physicians and struck fear in patients. Although there are drugs on the market to control seizures, many patients receive little benefit. But there may now be a reason to hope for some of these patients. Though the technology is still in its infancy, a new approach to controlling seizures championed by five Duke University graduate students – four from the Pratt ...

May 29, 2008

Scattered Light Reveals Size and Shape Of The Nucleus

By Richard Merritt A new technology based on the interpretation of light reflected off cells will make it faster and more efficient for researchers to document how the nucleus, which contains a cell’s DNA and controls its actions, changes shape in response to its environment. The technique will enable researchers for the first time to watch some changes in the living cell as they happen. The Duke University bioengineers who developed the new method and demonstrated its ...

May 23, 2008

You 2008 DuPont Young Investigator

To support his work in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, DuPont has awarded Lingchong You a three-year research grant as a part of its Young Professor program for 2008. You, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering and researcher at Duke’s Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy, focuses his research on the creation of “living circuits” comprised of genetically altered microbes. By manipulating these circuits, You hopes to produce proteins ...

May 23, 2008

You 2008 DuPont Young Investigator

May 20, 2008

Engineering the Heart - Damaged Heart Muscle Could Use Stem Cell Patch

Five Question Interview with Nenad Bursac Nenad Bursac is an assistant professor in biomedical engineering who works with stem cells, tissue engineering and biomaterials to find a way to patch and repair the damage created by a heart attack. Q - How did you get from electrical engineering to heart muscles? I was always fascinated by the heart as an extremely complex and powerful, and yet delicate, organ. The heart is both an electrical and mechanical ...

May 19, 2008

Lee Pearson Commencement Speech 2008

Welcome mothers and happy Mother's Day, thank you for all that you do. Welcome fathers thanks for your part in making Mother's Day possible. Welcome Pratt Class of 2008. It has been a long road and we have reached the end of this journey in what seems like much less time than anticipated. Although our parents were certainly focused on getting to the destination on time and on budget, we were more focused on what interesting ...

May 11, 2008

Duke University Awards Degrees to 404 Engineers

Duke University and its Pratt School of Engineering awarded degrees to 230 undergraduate and 174 graduate students May 11 and engineering Dean Robert L. Clark said Pratt’s graduating seniors are ready to help tackle some of the many challenges facing the nation and the global society. “You are about to accept a much greater responsibility for yourselves, and as engineers, for all of humanity,” Clark told a standing-only-crowd of graduates, and their friends and families gathered ...

May 8, 2008

Gift to Drive Better Understanding of Uncertainty Analysis

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering has received a gift of $5 million from an anonymous donor to establish a new undergraduate curriculum that will encourage students to think critically about problems that lack obvious solutions, like those they will encounter after graduation, President Richard H. Brodhead announced Wednesday. The planned curriculum will be open to undergraduates from all majors. “Duke’s strategic plan, ‘Making a Difference,’ calls for investments in programs that help students ...

May 6, 2008

First Steps Toward Autonomous Robot Surgeries

DURHAM, N.C. – The day may be getting a little closer when robots will perform surgery on patients in dangerous situations or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield or in space, with minimal human guidance. Engineers at Duke University believe that the results of feasibility studies conducted in their laboratory represent the first concrete steps toward achieving this space age vision of the future. Also, on a more immediate level, the technology developed by ...

May 6, 2008