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Bioengineering:
Imagine if we could deliver biotherapies directly to the heart or engineer new tissue to repair a diseased organ. What if we had the tools to precisely analyze developmental deformities of the skeleton or create synthetic bone materials to repair fractured bones?
The Birth of a New Discipline
The new discipline of bioengineering is melding the fields of medicine and engineering, and a new breed of scientist, the bioengineer, is applying the tools of engineering — manipulating, modeling, and designing processes — to the discipline of biology, deepening our understanding of complex living systems.
Stanford bioengineers are working at the leading edge of an entirely new approach to medicine, one that holds the promise of fundamentally transforming the way we diagnose, treat, and prevent disease.
Turning Gray Matter
Into Black and White
The central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) is a contradictory network. On the one hand, its neurons and cells are extremely adaptable. Yet it is also extremely sensitive, virtually shutting down after an injury or trauma.
Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, has some new ideas about how to shed light on this extraordinarily complex system. What if, he asks, circuitry glitches rather than chemical imbalances are responsible for many mental disorders? He and his colleagues in neuroscience, bioengineering, and psychiatry are devising the tools to find out, using engineering techniques to analyze the brain's components at their most fundamental level. His premise is that if we can actually see how brain cells communicate — in real time — it may be possible to design treatments for disorders ranging from chronic depression to autism to Alzheimer's disease.
Clinical Challenges from New Perspectives
The success and vitality of this endeavor will depend in great part on our ability to educate a new generation of scientists who will embrace this still-evolving field. The eminent faculty we have already recruited and the first-rate students who have been drawn to our graduate program testify to the strength of our approach. Projections for the department include 24 faculty over the next decade, along with an expanding graduate program and a new undergraduate program. Our plans for growth reflect the burgeoning interest in the field and guarantee that Stanford faculty and students will play a key role in inventing the future of this new discipline.
Educating the Next Generation
As the field of bioengineering matures, the possibilities for clinical applications grow even more promising. Bioengineers, working closely with their colleagues in a wide range of traditional departments, from cardiology and cancer biology to chemical engineering and computer science, are forging new pathways in many areas of medicine.
In cancer research, scientists are pursuing bioprocess engineering techniques that will allow patients to synthesize specially tailored medicines. In orthopedics, they are working to develop real-time navigation tools to be used in minimally invasive surgery. And in cardiovascular medicine, researchers are exploring intravascular imaging techniques that could vastly improve the diagnosis of heart disease. Together, their efforts hold out enormous hope for advancing health.
