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Home / Research

Research

Changing the Way of Medicine

Researchers in the UA Department of Biomedical Engineering are combining technology and medicine like never before to create products that improve care and outcomes for patients with cancer, heart disease and vision loss.

They are developing imaging to detect ovarian cancer in its earliest stages, creating artificial hearts and retinal implants, developing wearable health monitor technology and improving surgical procedures for brain cancer.

Focus Areas

UA biomedical engineering research focus areas include the following: 

  • Biomedical imaging and spectroscopy
  • Biomedical informatics
  • Bioinstrumentation and devices
  • Biomaterials and tissue engineering
  • Biomechanics
  • Biosensors
  • Cardiovascular biomedical engineering
  • Neuroengineering
  • Nanomedicine

Project Highlights

A First for Wearable Sensors

Dr. Marvin Slepian, director of the Arizona Center for Accelerated Biomedical Innovation , was co-investigator in the development of a stretchable, wearable medical device – about the size of a quarter – that measures biomarkers to reveal the body’s response to exercise.

We wanted to rapidly and painlessly obtain information, without needles, about the body’s internal milieu.

A Light in the Dark

Associate professor Erika Eggers is using $2.8 million in grants from the National Eye Institute and the National Science Foundation to better understand how increased levels of light increase visual acuity. She hopes to develop cell-based models for drugs that can slow or reverse vision loss.

If we succeed, it will increase our understanding of normal vision and our ability to recognize changes that portend visual disturbances and loss.

Strain in the Brain

A paper on traumatic brain injury lead authored by BME assistant professor Kaveh Laksari examined 537 head impacts across 31 athletes. It found that some of today’s most harmful injuries are the result of stretching and straining well below the surface of the brain.

Our goal was to understand the underlying mechanism of the brain deformation during an impact. That will enable us to provide better diagnosis and prevention in the future.

Smartphones for Eye Screening

Associate professor Wolfgang Fink, whose inventions have helped restore partial sight to the blind, is creating telemedical devices for blindness prevention.

It would be something that provides quality health care to those in austere environments like third-world countries, to those deployed in the field or on a ship.

Tracking a Silent Killer

Professor Jennifer Barton, director of BIO5, is leading a team to identify biomarkers and developing optical imaging tools to screen for ovarian cancer, often called a “silent killer.”

Our goal is…to build a viable optical imaging technology that will enable early detection and save lives.

Research Centers and Facilities

BME faculty and students collaborate extensively across UA colleges in the following major centers: 

  • Arizona Center for Accelerated Biomedical Innovation
  • BIO5 Institute
  • College of Medicine, Center on Aging
  • Data Science Institute
  • Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute
  • Institute of the Environment
  • Sarver Heart Center
  • UA Cancer Center
  • Research, Discovery & Innovation

See UA College of Engineering-affiliated Research Centers and Institutes.

Fast Facts
22 nd
UA’s national ranking for R&D expenditure
by U.S. public universities
(National Science Foundation)
50 +
faculty working on BME projects
1310
bioscience companies in Arizona
(Arizona Bioindustry Association)
  • Employee Resources
The University of Arizona
Department of Biomedical Engineering
1127 E. James E. Rogers Way
P.O. Box 210020
Tucson, AZ 85721-0020
520.621.0780

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© 2019 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of The University of Arizona.