Biomedical Engineering unit
Head of unit: Dina Ziadloo
Introduction:
Medical engineering is the liaison between different medical specialties and technology and engineering. In other words, medical engineering is a combination of engineering, basic science, medical science and biology and by studying the principals, function and behavior of live organs of human body, connects medicine to contemporary technology.
Patient trreatment is made possible with the help of advanced equipments and new technology. Accurate diagnosis and easy treatment can be achieved by employing new methods along with professional equipments. Therefore, improving equipments and paying attention to medical engineering result in welfare of patients, improving the general health of the society, honoring the citizens, and protecting the work force and human resources.
Background:
As a matter of fact, medical engineering was founded in 1673 with the invention of a crude microscope by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in Holland. By registering his invention in the Royal Society in London, he was renowned as the first medical engineer and the father of bacteriology. In Iran its background goes back to Shekh-o-Raees Buali Sina. This topic has been cited in the book “Eastern Genius” by Noorollah Laroodi reporting an invention by Booali Sina in the forth century resulting in full recovery of a Kharazm army colonel. He designed a netlike container with wires containing fishes that could produce electricity. It would be connected to the patient and the electricity would be transferred to the patient via the water and then wires. By doing so, a patient whose nervous system had been paralyzed as the result of trauma would receive an electric shock and with a proper dietary regimen, would be improved after a period of time.
Biomedical engineering has been a matter of discussion in different countries since 50 years ago. It was approved as an educational field by Johns Hopkins University, USA in 1950 after a negotiation with the American National Health Institution and Pennsylvania and Rochester Universities. It expanded considerably in 1960s and in the second generation, was established in UC Berkeley, Stanford, Case Western Reserve University, Ohio State University and MIT.
Medical engineering various functions:
1- Management of medical equipments: A medical engineer as a member of the hospital staff is responsible for evaluation, selection and supervision of appropriate and safe use of medical technology, management of equipments (purchase, repair, maintenance, quality control), training the personnel regarding the proper use of devices, collecting information about hospital equipments and presenting the newest most efficient imported equipments.
2- Precise medical instruments: Designing biologic sensors and electronic systems is performed by medical engineers. These instruments are used in devices for vital signs monitoring and measurement of physiologic parameters.
3- Modeling, visualizing and controlling physiologic systems: In this field, medical engineer defines the qualitative and quantitative correlations of physiologic systems and predicts their behavior and function by using computerized electronic visualization techniques. A simple example of modeling is modeling the cell with electronic elements. Cell membrane acts as a condenser, intracellular elements as the impedance and intracellular fluid as the resource of voltage and by analyzing this circuit, interesting data is obtained.
4- Analyzing the physiologic signals in medicine: For this purpose, DSP methods are usually employed. Analyzing cardiac, cerebral or muscular signals in ECG, EEG and EMG and interpreting them with comprehensive softwares will have a significant role in diagnostic procedures.
5- Interpreting medical images: in this field, different techniques for interpretation of two- and three- dimensional signals is used to improve the quality of medical images and data extraction.
6- Rehabilitation: It can be considered as a branch of medical engineering which uses technical engineering concepts in designing and manufacturing medical and physiotherapy devices to improve the life quality of patients and ease the life for them.
7- Orthoprothesis: Design and manufacture of orthoprothesis are of the research fields of medical engineering.
8- Cellular molecule and tissue engineering: In this field, use of rules and concepts of engineering and biology for understanding the connection of cells in intact and damaged tissues and changing the characteristics of cells and tissues with the aim of improving their function is evaluated.
9- Biocompatible materials: In this field, manufacture of materials that can be used inside the body and are compatible with the body immune system is studied.
10- Drug release techniques: Medical engineers are trying to innovate methods for the manufacture of efficient drugs at the shortest possible time, with maximum efficiency and best quality.