Category: Biomedical Engineering Page 1 of 9

It all starts with a simple question: How can I help? For some Duke students, the answer meant taking initiative – transforming empathy into action, ideas, and impact in order to tackle the most pressing global health issues head-on.

On April 10, 2025, two Duke teams were among 22 semi-finalist teams, representing 18 universities across eight countries, who met at the 15th Annual Global Health Technologies Design Competition on the Rice University campus. There, the students exchanged their strong passions about global health and learned from one another’s efforts to address the needs of low-resource communities. The projects spanned a wide spectrum of challenges, from portable glaucoma detection devices for applications in rural Peru, to low-cost sensor-based gloves for translating sign language into voice in real time, and many more!

*The Awards at the Rice360 Global Health Technologies Design Competition*

The competition was hosted by the Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, a multi-disciplinary institute that aims to elevate global health technology education and research. Following their mission, this event helped to raise awareness about students who are leading global health innovation. Moreover, participating students received the opportunity to engage with judges, mentors, and interested attendees with expertise in global health for vital feedback and recommendations for future project plans.

The two Duke teams that qualified as semi-finalists were HemoSave and VenAlign. HemoSave was awarded first place for their project targeting the leading cause of maternal mortality worldwide, an excessive loss of blood after childbirth called postpartum hemorrhage. To combat this critical issue, the HemoSave team designed a cost-effective blood loss tracking device that uses colorimetric and gravimetric analysis. By doing so, the device allows clinicians to accurately measure blood loss during C-sections to improve high-stakes decision-making in low-resource settings. All components of the design were locally sourced from Kampala, Uganda, to maximize affordability and accessibility within such low-resource settings.

*Representatives from the Duke University HemoSave Team, Haasini Nandyala and James Bradley*

Second place was awarded to QBiT A.R.M. from Queen’s University for their work on developing low-cost, 3-D printable arm prosthetics. Their open-source design allows “clinics in lower- and middle-income countries to produce prosthetics on-site, restoring mobility and independence for those in need” (Rice360).

BiliRoo from Calvin University won third place for their device that combines filtered sunlight phototherapy technology and skin-to-skin contact between parent and child to treat neonatal jaundice in low-resource settings. For more information and to learn about the rest of the other incredible projects, please refer to the Rice360 website (link).

In addition to the student competition, Rice360 honored two current leaders in Global Health this year for their continued perseverance and successes within innovation for Global Health. The two recipients for the Rice360 Innovation and Leadership in Global Health Award were Dr. June Madete and Dr. Patty J. García, both successful leaders of global health in their own right.

After noticing a disheartening lack of biomedical engineering in Kenya, Madete realized the necessity of applying her scientific experience to advancing biomedical adoption within sub-Saharan Africa. She is now a senior lecturer and researcher at Kenyatta University, where she leads education efforts in engineering to connect with students, lecturers, scientists, and industry all across Africa.

*Dr. García presenting as a Keynote Speaker*

García has also dedicated her career to advancing global health, but through a more public policy perspective. As the former Minister of Health in Peru and former Chief of the Peruvian National Institute of Health, García worked to translate critical biomedical research into real-world applications across Peru and Latin America. Her work to improve research on and the quality of health services surrounding reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections has worked to improve the safety and well-being of critical communities and vulnerable populations.

As the keynote speakers, Madete and García shared their distinct journeys across opposite sides of the globe, each grounded in a common goal to advance the well-being of underserved communities through global health innovation and education. Altogether, the students, speakers, and supporters at this year’s Rice360 competition demonstrated that meaningful change is already in motion, driven by hope for a healthier, more equitable world.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is photograd.png — *By Monona Zhou, Class of 2028*

This Entrepreneur Is Changing the Way We Repair the Human Body

By Sarah Pusser

On January 28, 2025

In Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Business/Economics, Data, Engineering, Genetics/Genomics, Global Health

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Or should I say, January 23 at the Rubenstein Arts Center…? That is where biomedical engineer Nina Tandon showed us the almost magical, yet extremely precise, science of EpiBone–where personalized bones and cartilage are grown from stem cells.

But first, it would be completely inappropriate of me to discuss Tandon’s revolutionary work without first sharing her stories from her childhood and adolescent years; that was one of the many aspects I admired about her talk–how much love Tandon shared for those who helped spark her passion for science.

First, there was her grandmother, Dadi Ma, who at a young age wanted to study math, but unfortunately, due to the time she grew up in, was pushed away from any STEM-related field. Tandon helped complete her Dadi Ma’s dreams to pursue a STEM education. And there were the late nights in the research library with her mother; Tandon told us how she would often use her class as a group to “test how people’s memories worked, and test our (Tandon’s) classmate’s depth perception.” Then, Tandon met Dr. Maria Musarella, who helped identify her brother’s retinitis pigmentosa. And while no cure for it at the time, Dr. Musareli told Tandon how there was a team at MIT working on it–to which Tandon thought, “Maybe I’ll join that team one day.”

Little did young Nina Tandon know just what she would do one day.

After going to school for electrical engineering, Tandon found herself working at a Bell Labs spin-off, where she learned one of the most important lessons of her life: One’s choice of job should always be “content secondary, people primary.” However, because of the new suburban area she found herself in post-9/11, Tandon felt isolated. But within this time of solace, she was able to connect the similarities between genes and data: “The axon conduction in a nerve–that’s a lot like those same equations that govern the transatlantic cable… cell membranes are 20 times higher capacitance than the best capacitors that we could build with our human hands.”

Through these observations, Tandon was able to conclude that “our bodies are the most exquisite technology we have ever been familiarized with.”

Photo credit: London College of Osteopathy

So she decided to apply to the team at MIT that Dr. Musarella had told her about years before, in which she was accepted and then joined. It was a full circle moment; Tandon was seeing herself living the dreams of the girl who would conduct experiments on her elementary school class. It should have been perfect, right?

“And I had made a mistake… I made a mistake.” She had not chosen people first and content secondary. However, as Tandon noted many times throughout her talk, it is her failures that showed her what it was she needed to do in order to succeed.

I found this aspect of the talk truly inspiring. Usually, when an extremely accomplished person talks to an eager room, they spend most of their time highlighting what they have done correctly. But here Tandon was, taking her time telling us all of the ways in which she had failed. And how those were the moments that led to her largest lessons learned. Although I can’t speak for everyone in that room, as a college student myself, there was a comfort in seeing such a successful, powerful, and kind woman telling us that we will fail… And showing us that that is the beauty in success.

So, to make an extremely long story short, Tandon then proceeded to join Robert Langer’s lab at MIT for five years, studying “how electrical signals could coax stem cells into becoming tissue,” work in a management consulting job at McKinsey & Company to learn more about entrepreneurship, and then attend Columbia for her EMBA and PhD (at the same time!). Phew, that’s a lot.

In 2014, Tandon co-founded EpiBone, in which she and her team began working in a candy factory-converted lab in Harlem. By starting with CT scans, EpiBone can make a “perfect puzzle piece-shaped biome material scaffold and a perfect puzzle piece bioreactor.” In other words, “an environment that simulated the natural conditions for tissue development.” Within two to four weeks, Tandon and her team can grow any cartilage, bone, and joints needed throughout the body.

Since starting her company, EpiBone has been able to grow jaw bones for six patients, which “fit perfectly and were integrated within four to six months.” This is just the beginning. EpiBone’s technology could change how we view medicine and treatment–giving patients a promise of more active lives instead of just a prescription of pain medicines.

However, as much of a miracle as this is, Tandon had to move her business’s location because of the restraining process of clinical trials within the United States, where the limited funding cannot match the necessary costs of clinical trials. Now in Abu Dhabi, Tandon has found a home for her and her family to live happily while also being in a place where she feels like EpiBone is finally starting to see a future where it can be implemented into medicine and used in patients.

Ending her talk, Tandon noted how she has learned to count her blessings, even in times when she felt like her work was not being appreciated for what it was. “It’s a shortcut for me because I’ve studied biology to be grateful… Oh my god, my heart just beat five times–that’s like a million miracles.”

Tandon has shown us that true success is not viewed from the top of the mountain, looking down at all that you have climbed, but instead, learning to appreciate and find joy in the trek to the top. I thank her, on behalf of all of the people at Duke and all who she will help in the future, for her revolutionary work in science and her honest words of inspiration.

By Sarah Pusser Class of 2028

Invented at Duke, Inspired at Duke

By Stone Yan

On November 25, 2024

In Biomedical Engineering, Entrepreneurship

“Our technology is tailored towards scanning animals. In fact, we can run scans on entire organisms!”

Image from the Photoacoustic Imaging Lab that made it onto the front page of Science: glassfrog transparency!

Excitedly, Soon-Woo Cho, a postdoctoral associate in the Photoacoustic Imaging Lab, referred me to the standing poster at the Nov. 20 Invented at Duke showcase. While I stood puzzled looking intensely at the articulate images, I suddenly realized that the jumble of blue and red outlined the shape of a frog!

As one could imagine, this technology, the masterpiece invention of biomedical engineering professor Junjie Yao and his team, is too advanced for a first-semester undergraduate to understand.

Nonetheless, Cho patiently explained its basic mechanisms to me in simpler terms. One of the technology’s key attributes was its speed; while traditional imaging counterparts were known for their long processing times, Yao’s team was able to reduce that time to mere seconds.

Another accomplishment is the product’s versatility and widespread application. Not only can the system distinguish between arteries and veins, coloring them as red and blue respectively, it can also play an important role in diagnosing cancer cells, as these malignant cells are known for inducing abnormal growth of surrounding blood vessels.

After hearing this inspirational work, I traveled a few steps to another booth. While both research projects take place within the biomedical engineering department, their focus could not be more different. Ruth Verrinder, a current PhD student working in Jonathan Viventi’s lab, explained to me how the flexible electrode strips on display are part of an effort to address a significant medical need.

Ruth Verrinder, PhD student and member of the Viventi Lab.

Today, many surgeries to treat epilepsy are disappointingly unsuccessful. Even after a lengthy medical process including diagnosis and highly intensive treatment and procedures, such failures are simply too much to bear for many patients and families. The Viventi Lab believes that through improving the quality and quantity of data collected by medical electrodes, more surgical successes would naturally follow.

Their current product is already in use at Duke, and the team has ambitious plans for further developing the product. The top priority is to build implantable electrodes so brain signals could be tracked for weeks to months before prospective surgeries, better informing surgeons and medical professionals on the specific patient’s conditions.

While the booths hosting major inventions attracted the most fanfare, many other organizations were also present. One can hardly avoid the history exhibition: the bending, wave-like wall of “A Century of Innovation at Duke” greeted every visitor as they walked in the Penn Pavilion doors. On the other side of the wall, a history table curated by the Rubenstein Library displayed remarkable patents from Blue Devils across time, not to mention the popular button-making station that touted designs like “I love patents!”

Although the acclaimed Dr. Robert Califf, director of the Food and Drug Administration, did not make it to the event, the occasion was nonetheless an overwhelming success. As a biomedical engineering student, I got to witness some of the most advanced research occurring in my field of study and meet prominent faculty. In the crowd of attendees, many students, regardless of undergraduate or graduate, studying humanities or the sciences, huddled around posters while inquisitively listening to inventors. Even academics from other institutions came to attend the sixth annual Invented at Duke: while I was learning more about the Viventi Lab’s research, a scholar from the University of Georgia joined the huddle and posed questions.

Even as all attendees, including myself, were astounded by the ingenious discoveries presented, I think there is a deeper takeaway than simply being “wowed” by incredibly advanced brain electrodes or imaging systems.

As stressed by the Office of Translation and Commercialization, Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Nucleate, a student-led organization focused on biotechnology innovation, groundbreaking development is feasible and not a feat to be done alone. For those with bold ideas, there are innumerable resources on campus to help bring those visions into reality.

For those interested in innovation but do not have the “sparks,” there are countless ways to get involved with existing projects and find one that suits your passions. Above all, those whose interest lies beyond biomedical sciences should not be discouraged: if there are current initiatives aimed at improving satellite images, there are surely many other non-biomedical endeavors for you to explore!

Let us not only celebrate what’s invented, but also the thriving spirit of invention here at Duke. Onwards!

The Dukies Cited Most Highly

By Karl Bates

On November 19, 2024

In Behavior/Psychology, Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Cardiology, Engineering, Environment/Sustainability, Faculty, Genetics/Genomics, Medicine, Neuroscience, Physics, Space

The Web of Science ranking of the world’s most highly-cited scientists was released this morning, telling us who makes up the top 1 percent of the world’s scientists. These are the authors of influential papers that other scientists point to when making their arguments.

EDITOR’S NOTE! — Web of Science shared last year’s data! We apologize. List below is now corrected, changes to copy in bold. We’re so sorry.

Twenty-three of the citation laureates are Duke scholars or had a Duke affiliation when the landmark works were created over the last decade.

*A couple of these Duke people disappeared from this year’s list, but we’re still proud of them.*

Two names on the list belong to Duke’s international powerhouse of developmental psychology, the Genes, Environment, Health and Behavior Lab, led by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi.

Dan Scolnic of Physics returns as our lone entry in Space Science, which just makes Duke sound cooler all around, don’t you think?

This is a big deal for the named faculty and an impressive line on their CVs. But the selection process weeds out “hyper-authorship, excessive self-citation and anomalous citation patterns,” so don’t even think about gaming it.

Fifty-nine nations are represented by the 6,636 individual researchers on this year’s list. About half of the citation champions are in specific fields and half in ‘cross-field’ — where interdisciplinary Duke typically dominates. The U.S. is still the most-cited nation with 36 percent of the world’s share, but shrinking slightly. Mainland China continues to rise, claiming second place with 20 percent of the cohort, up 2.5 percent from just last year. Then, in order, the UK, Germany and Australia round out the top five.

Tiny Singapore, home of the Duke NUS Graduate Medical School, is the tenth-most-cited with 1.6 percent of the global share.

In fact, five Duke NUS faculty made this year’s list: Antonio Bertoletti, Derek Hausenloy and Jenny Guek-Hong Low for cross-field; Carolyn S. P. Lam for clinical medicine, and the world famous “Bat Man,” Lin-Fa Wang, for microbiology.

Okay, you scrolled this far, let’s go!

Biology and Biochemistry

Charles A. Gersbach

Clinical Medicine

Christopher Bull Granger

Adrian F. Hernandez

Gary Lyman

Cross-Field

Priyamvada Acharya

Chris Beyrer

Stefano Curtarolo

Vance G. Fowler Jr.

Po-Chun Hsu (adjunct, now U. Chicago)

Ru-Rong Ji

William E. Kraus

David B. Mitzi

Christopher B. Newgard

Pratiksha I. Thakore (now with Genentech)

Xiaofei Wang

Mark R. Wiesner

Environment and Ecology

Robert B. Jackson (adjunct, now Stanford U.)

Microbiology

Barton F. Haynes

Neuroscience and Behavior

Quinn T. Ostrom

Plant and Animal Science

Sheng-Yang He

Psychiatry and Psychology

Avshalom Caspi

William E. Copeland

Terrie E. Moffitt

Space Science

Dan Scolnic

Sticking to Sweat: The Future of Biosensors and Tracking Our Health

By Monona Zhou and Nicolas Zepeda

On October 18, 2024

In Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Medicine, Science Communication & Education, Uncategorized

Bandaids and pimple patches are the first things we consider when discussing adhesives in medicine. But what if there is more to the story? What if adhesives could not only cover and protect but also diagnose and communicate? It turns out Dr. Wei Gao, assistant professor of medical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, is asking these exact questions. In the field of biomedical adhesives, Gao’s research is revolutionizing our understanding of precision medicine and medical testing accessibility. He visited Duke on Oct. 9 to present his work as part of the MEMS (Mechanical Engineering and Material Science) Seminar Series.

Gao’s research team focuses on material, device, and system innovations that apply molecular research and principles to clinical settings and improve health. Gao focused his talk on the invaluable characteristics and uses of sweat. Sweat can offer doctors a broad spectrum of information, including nutrients, biomarkers, pH levels, electrolytes/salts, and hormones. He leverages this fundamental characteristic of human physiology to design wearable biosensors that can provide early warnings of health issues or diseases. Gao focuses on making biomarker detection more efficient than current methods, such as blood samples, which require hospital testing, involve highly invasive techniques, and lack continuous monitoring.

The first milestone in his research came in 2016 when he introduced a fully printed, wearable, real-time monitoring sensor device. The device allowed them to continuously collect sweat and wirelessly communicate data about these sweat samples from patients onto digital devices. The initial 2016 device focused on resolving four fundamental challenges: since most chemical sensors are not stable over long periods of time, the device had to be (1) low-cost and (2) disposable without sacrificing performance. In addition, the device had to (3) be mass-producible to be accessible to the public and (4) integrate multiple signals that could be real-time transmitted to a digital interface.

Schematic of the sensor array for multiplexed perspiration analysis in Dr. Gao’s 2016 biosensor design

To address the first two of those challenges, Gao and his group turned to printing techniques. The circuit substrate was a thin piece of flexible PET (a plastic), upon which they layered the circuit components. The flexible sensor array was constructed in a similar pattern, with a layer of PET patterned with gold to produce the electrodes, covered with parylene, and then each electrode was tuned to receive a specific chemical stimulus: potassium and sodium ion sensors, with a polyvinyl butyrate reference electrode, and oxidase-based glucose and lactate sensors paired with a silver/silver chloride reference electrode. This design allows the simultaneous monitoring of multiple biomarkers. To transmit the data wirelessly, the circuit board included a Bluetooth transceiver.

The next major step was to devise a way to monitor sweat without relying upon heat or vigorous exercise, neither of which may be feasible in the case of clinically ill patients. In a 2023 paper, Gao and colleagues published a biosensor that could induce localized sweating using an electric circuit. Called iontophoresis, the technique delivers a drug (a cholinergic agonist) that stimulates the sweat glands on demand and only in the area of the sensor.

Another important question was how to power the devices sustainably. Gao’s lab has devised two primary responses to this question: In a 2020 paper, his team powered a similar multiplexed wireless sensor entirely using electricity generated from compounds in sweat. This entailed using lactate biofuel cells to harness the oxidation of lactate to pyruvate (coupled with the reduction of oxygen to water) to provide a stable current. In a 2023 paper, they employed a flexible perovskite solar cell onboard the device to power the monitoring of a suite of biomarkers.

Dr. Gao’s recent publication in February 2024 highlighted a Consolidated AI-Reinforced Electronic Skin (CARES) for stress response monitoring

With these technical hurdles overcome, Gao and his lab have been able to develop sensors targeted to several important medical applications. The work can be directly applied to the monitoring of conditions like cystic fibrosis and gout. More broadly, wearable biosensors can be used to track levels of medically relevant compounds like cortisol (for stress monitoring), C reactive protein (inflammation), and reproductive hormones. The lab has also branched into other kinds of devices that use similar microfluidics approaches, including smart bandages for wound monitoring and smart masks to detect biomarkers in breath.

Through eight years of dedicated investigation, Gao serves as a pioneer in the field of bioelectronic interfaces. Gao continues to widen the possibilities of biosensors not only within the medical sphere but also for the general public. For example, his lab is collaborating with NASA and the U.S. Navy to support the performance and health of astronauts and our military, which is vital as they work in extreme environments. By pushing forward ground-breaking devices such as sweat biosensors, our healthcare systems can pursue preventative care, reducing the need for treatments or health resources by catching these issues early on. Following Gao’s footsteps, we can now build toward a healthier future as we improve the precision of our healthcare approaches and technological advancements.

Duke experts discuss the potential of AI to help prevent, detect and treat disease

By Robin Smith

On October 15, 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Medicine

Sure, A.I. chatbots can write emails, summarize an article, or come up with a grocery list. But ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence and other machine learning techniques have been making their way into another realm: healthcare.

Imagine using AI to detect early changes in our health before we get sick, or understand what happens in our brains when we feel anxious or depressed — even design new ways to fight hard-to-treat diseases.

These were just a few of the research themes discussed at the Duke Summit on AI for Health Innovation, held October 9 – 11.

Duke assistant professor Pranam Chatterjee is the co-founder of Gameto, Inc. and UbiquiTx, Inc. Credit: Brian Strickland

For assistant professor of biomedical engineering Pranam Chatterjee, the real opportunity for the large language models behind tools like ChatGPT lies not in the language of words, but in the language of biology.

Just like ChatGPT predicts the order of words in a sentence, the language models his lab works on can generate strings of molecules that make up proteins.

His team has trained language models to design new proteins that could one day fight diseases such as Huntington’s or cancer, even grow human eggs from stem cells to help people struggling with infertility.

“We don’t just make any proteins,” Chatterjee said. “We make proteins that can edit any DNA sequence, or proteins that can modify other disease-causing proteins, as well as proteins that can make new cells and tissues from scratch.”

Duke assistant professor Monica Agrawal is the co-founder of Layer Health. Credit: Brian Strickland

New faculty member Monica Agrawal said algorithms that leverage the power of large language models could help with another healthcare challenge: mining the ever-expanding trove of data in a patient’s medical chart.

To choose the best medication for a certain patient, for example, a doctor might first need to know things like: How has their disease progressed over time? What interventions have already been tried? What symptoms and side effects did they have? Do they have other conditions that need to be considered?

“The challenge is, most of these variables are not found cleanly in the electronic health record,” said Agrawal, who joined the departments of computer science and biostatistics and bioinformatics this fall.

Instead, most of the data that could answer these questions is trapped in doctors’ notes. The observations doctors type into a patient’s electronic medical record during a visit, they’re often chock-full of jargon and abbreviations.

The shorthand saves time during patient visits, but it can also lead to confusion among patients and other providers. What’s more, reviewing these records to understand a patient’s healthcare history is time-intensive and costly.

Agrawal is building algorithms that could make these records easier to maintain and analyze, with help from AI.

“Language is really embedded across medicine, from notes to literature to patient communications to trials,” Agrawal said. “And it affects many stakeholders, from clinicians to researchers to patients. The goal of my new lab is to make clinical language work for everyone.”

Duke assistant professor Jessilyn Dunn leads Duke’s BIG IDEAs Lab. Credit: Brian Strickland

Jessilyn Dunn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke, is looking at whether data from smartwatches and other wearable devices could help detect early signs of illness or infection before people start to have symptoms and realize they’re sick.

Using AI and machine learning to analyze data from these devices, she and her team at Duke’s Big Ideas Lab say their research could help people who are at risk of developing diabetes take action to reverse it, or even detect when someone is likely to have RSV, COVID-19 or the flu before they have a chance to spread the infection.

“The benefit of wearables is that we can gather information about a person’s health over time, continuously and at a very low cost,” Dunn said. “Ultimately, the goal is to provide patient empowerment, precision therapies, just-in-time intervention and improve access to care.”

Duke associate professor David Carlson. Credit: Brian Strickland

David Carlson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and biostatistics and bioinformatics, is developing AI techniques that can make sense of brain wave data to better understand different emotions and behaviors.

Using machine learning to analyze the electrical activity of different brain regions in mice, he and his colleagues have been able to track how aggressive a mouse is feeling, and even block the aggression signals to make them more friendly to other mice.

“This might sound like science fiction,” Carlson said. But Carlson said the work will help researchers better understand what happens in the brains of people who struggle with social situations, such as those with autism or social anxiety disorder, and could even lead to new ways to manage and treat psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression.

Meet New Blogger Stone Yan

By Stone Yan

On September 23, 2024

In Biomedical Engineering, Students

“Hi, my name is Stone. S-t-o-n-e.”

Since move-in day, I have repeated this introduction hundreds of times. Curiously, I received a lot of “that’s a cool name!” comments in response… enough times to make me pause and think about my name and the history behind it.

“Stone” has not always been a source of pride. Imagine the fun middle schoolers had with it: “ColdStone,” “Stone Cold,” “You Rock,” and other variations. And the name was supposed to be a refuge: my legal name, Shidong, has been so frequently mispronounced by teachers (typically on the first day of school) that I had been convinced that Stone would be a better choice.

The unfortunate nicknames aside, I found explaining the origin of “Stone” to be a hassle. After all, my legal name’s meaning had nothing to do with pebbles or other igneous creations. The Chinese character “shi” meant soldier and the character “dong” translated to scholarship. When I arrive here during some conversations, I find myself often disappointed that the profound meaning behind my name is often thought of in terms of rocks.

Why the lengthy introspection about a few letters? In my few weeks here at Duke, I realized that I am experiencing a rejuvenation in my identity, encouraged by “that’s a cool name!” comments. My name, who I am, what my interests are, and other factors are no longer restricted by previous limitations in the form of high school curriculum, club offerings, or social culture. I am interacting with much more diverse students who, like me, have long and winding life stories and are willing to share them with others.

In short, the personal biography I am about to share with you is dynamic. At Duke, my mission is to explore as much as possible, both in the classroom and beyond, doing things that I would have despised a few short years ago (going against upper class students’ advice on course selection is an egregious sin for young Stone). It is possible that in a semester or two, my academic and extracurricular interests will have shifted so radically that none of what I wrote below is still accurate. Maybe that is my most important trait right now: willingness to experiment and change my mind. This is what led me to this opportunity with the Research Blog and why what you are reading exists in the internet world.

Stone with his parents in Park Güell, Barcelona

Now onto the “traditional” introduction: I am Stone Yan, a first-year student pursuing Biomedical Engineering. I hail from Chicago, Illinois, where the weather is as unpredictable as Durham, but the humidity is never intolerable. I am interested in medicine as my career after graduation, and I hope to study some health policy courses here in addition to my Pratt curriculum. I would describe myself as hard-working, curious, and determined.

Outside of grinding academics, I love to play the piano, play badminton, follow the news, and hang out with friends. Running, drawing, and watching YouTube are also favorite pastimes. My most hated household chore is folding laundry… I can never fold the clothes neat enough. My deepest fear is someone dumping my washed and dried clothes on the ground after I forgot to run to the laundry room… Randolph friends, please do not do this to me.

Hopefully, there were some sentiments shared here that you echoed. My mission as a blogger with the Research Blog is to broadcast tidbits that we do not typically notice and call our attention to amazingness overshadowed by other amazingness (too much of this on campus!). My focus will probably be on the people that make Duke special to all of us: the faculty, staff, students, athletes, alumni, and community members that make us proud to be Blue Devils.

I cannot conclude without giving a shoutout to my parents. As an only child, I was remarkably close to them, and I cannot thank them enough for their boundless support.

Cheers to celebrating Duke’s rich community in future blogs!

Carrying on Dr. King’s Legacy: The Fight for Equity in Obesity Treatment

By Skylar Hughes

On January 22, 2024

In Biomedical Engineering, Faculty, Lecture, Medicine

“Of all the forms of inequality” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said in a 1966 press conference, “injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane.”

In honor of King’s impact on public health, Duke’s dean of Trinity College Dr. Gary G. Bennett delivered a powerful address Jan. 12 at the Trent Semans Center. Entitled ‘You have to Keep Moving Forward: Obesity in High-Risk Populations,’ Bennett discussed America’s Obesity Epidemic, and its disproportionate effects on Black women.

“More than 40% of the American population has obesity,” Bennett began. Incidence rates among Black women are the highest and have been since the epidemic began in 1955. “These disparities have not closed, and in many cases, they’ve widened over the years,” Bennett said.

Type two diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease are just some of the health risks associated with obesity. Compared to other racial groups, Black women are more likely to suffer from these conditions, as well as die from their effects. Furthermore, it appears that the efficacy of treatment options is significantly lower for patients of African descent.

But why do such disparities exist in the first place? According to Bennett, they can be attributed to a range of internal and external factors. “There certainly are physiological variations that are worth noting here, which is perhaps a challenge in all of obesity research.”

Research published in the journal Nature in 2022 found that, while there are different forms of obesity, that have shared ‘genetic and biological underpinnings.’ Environmental factors are also driving disparities. Black women are “exposed to more obesogenic environments, food desserts,” Bennett explained. With limited access to affordable and nutritious food, options for healthy eating are slim.

But perhaps most interestingly, Black women also have a range of sociocultural factors at play. “There are fewer within-group social pressures to lose weight,” Bennett maintained. Other sociocultural factors include higher body image satisfaction and higher weight misperception. “This is problematic in some ways,” he continued. While it protects against certain eating disorders and low self-esteem, “It does challenge your ability to achieve weight loss.”

For Black women, obesity is a complex public health issue that needs to be addressed.

But how? From medication to surgery, there are myriad potential treatment options. According to Bennett, however, the real key is lifestyle intervention. “It really is the foundation.” Comprised of three parts: reduced calorie diet, physical activity, and self-monitoring, lifestyle intervention is able to reach the widest range of participants.

Like other treatment options, the lifestyle intervention route shows racial disparities in its outcomes. Because of this, Dr. Bennett’s work focuses on developing methods that are designed with Black patients in mind.

At the forefront of his research is a new online intervention called iOTA, which stands for Interactive Obesity Treatment Approach. “This is a digital obesity approach that we designed specifically for high-risk populations.” The platform personalizes weight loss goals and feedback, which assist in program retention.

In addition, participants are equipped with coaching support from trained medical professionals. “This IOTA approach does a bunch of things,” Bennett said. “It promotes weight loss and prevents weight gain, improves cardiometabolics,” along with a host of other physical benefits. Results also show a reduction in depressive symptoms and increased patient engagement. Truly incredible.

Scholars like Bennett have continued the fight for public health equity- a fight advocated for by Dr. King many years ago. For more information on Bennett and his work, you can visit his website here.

Written by Skylar Hughes | Class of 2025

Sharing a Love of Electrical Engineering With Her Students

By Guest Post

On January 11, 2024

In Artificial Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering, Faculty, Guest Post

Note: Each year, we partner with Dr. Amy Sheck’s students at the North Carolina School of Science and Math to profile some unsung heroes of the Duke research community. This is the seventh of eight posts.

“As a young girl, I always knew I wanted to be a scientist,” Dr. Tania Roy shares as she sits in her Duke Engineering office located next to state-of-the-art research equipment.

The path to achieving her dream took her to many places and unique research opportunities. After completing her bachelor’s in India, she found herself pursuing further studies at universities in the United States, eventually receiving her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University.

Throughout these years Roy was able to explore and contribute to a variety of fields within electrical engineering, including energy-efficient electronics, two-dimensional materials, and neuromorphic computing, among others. But her deepest passion and commitment is to engage upcoming generations with electrical engineering research.

As an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering within Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, Tania Roy gets to do exactly that. She finds happiness in mentoring her passionate young students. They work on projects focused on various problems in fields such as Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Mechanical Engineering, but her special focus is Electrical Engineering.

Roy walks through the facilities carefully explaining the purpose of each piece of equipment when we run into one of her students. She explains how his project involves developing hardware for artificial intelligence, and the core idea of computer vision.

Roy in her previous lab at the University of Central Florida. (UCF photo)

Through sharing her passion for electrical engineering, Roy hopes to motivate and inspire a new generation.

“The field of electrical engineering is expected to experience immense growth in the future, especially with the recent trends in technological development,” she says, explaining that there needs to be more interest in the field of electrical engineering for the growth to meet demand.

The recent shortage of semiconductor chips for the industrial market is an example of this. It poses a crucial problem to the supply and demand of various products that rely on these fundamental components, Roy says. By increasing the interest of students, and therefore increasing the number of students pursuing electrical engineering, we can build a foundation for the advancement of technologies powering our society today, says Roy.

Coming with a strong background of research herself, she is well equipped for the role of advocate and mentor. She has worked with gallium nitride for high voltage breakdowns. This is when the insulation between two conductors or electrical components fails, allowing electrical current to flow through the insulation. This breakdown usually occurs when the voltage across the insulating material exceeds a certain threshold known as the breakdown voltage.

In electric vehicles, high breakdown voltage is crucial for several reasons related to the safety, performance, and efficiency of the vehicle’s electrical system, and Roy’s work directly impacts this. She has also conducted extensive research on 2D materials and their photovoltaic capabilities, and is currently working on developing brain-inspired computer architectures for machine learning algorithms. Similar to the work of her student, this research utilizes the structure of the human brain to model an architecture for AI, replicating the synapses and neural connections.

As passionate as she is about research, she shares that she used to love to go to art galleries and look at paintings, “I could do it for hours,” Roy says. Currently, if she is not actively pursuing her research, she enjoys spending time with her two young children.

“I hope to share my dream with this new generation,” Roy concludes.

Guest post by Sutharsika Kumar, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Class of 2024

Solving More Medical Device Challenges by Teaching Others How

By Guest Post

On December 28, 2023

In Biomedical Engineering, Faculty, Global Health, Medicine

Note: Each year, we partner with Dr. Amy Sheck’s students at the North Carolina School of Science and Math to profile some unsung heroes of the Duke research community. This is the third of eight posts.

Eric Richardson is a professor of the practice in Biomedical Engineering and founding director of Duke Design Health. His research and teaching centers around medical device design and innovation, with a focus on underserved communities.

Richardson has always had a strong desire to enhance people’s wellbeing. Growing up, he wanted to be a doctor, but during high school, he was drawn towards the creative and problem-solving aspects of engineering. After earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, he pivoted to biomedical engineering for graduate work. While pursuing his PhD degree, he developed a profound interest in cardiac devices.

Through technology, Richardson has been able to impact the lives of many. He first worked in industry as a Principal R&D Engineer at Medtronic, where he helped develop transcatheter heart valves that have now helped over a million patients. However, it was his love for teaching that brought him to academia. Over the past decade as a professor, his interests have shifted towards global health and helping underserved communities.

Richardson aims to design technology to fit the needs of people, and bridge the gap of “translation” between research and product development. During his time in industry, Richardson realized that the vast majority of medical device research doesn’t go anywhere in terms of helping patients.

“That point of translation… is really where most technology and research dies, so I really wanted to be at that end of it, trying to figure out that pipeline of getting research, getting technology, all the way into the clinic,” Richardson says. “I would argue that is probably the hardest step of the whole process is actually getting a product together, developing it, doing the clinical trials, and doing the manufacturing and regulatory steps.”

A prototype of Richardson’s latest device.

Through his teaching, Richardson emphasizes product design, interdisciplinary approaches, and industry-academia partnerships to best meet the needs of underserved communities. One of his favorite courses to teach is the Design Health Series, a four-course sequence that he was brought to Duke to develop. In this class, interdisciplinary teams of graduate students, ranging from medicine to business, work together to design medical devices. They learn how to identify problems in medicine, develop a solution, and translate that into an actual product.

Richardson also encourages engineers to look at the broader picture and tackle the right problems. According to Richardson, challenges in global and emerging markets often aren’t due to a particular device, but rather, a multilayered system of care, ranging from a patient’s experience within a clinic to a country’s whole healthcare system. From this vantage point, he believes it’s important for engineers to determine where to intervene in the system, where the need is greatest, and to consider any unintended consequences.

“I think that there is so much great talent in the world, so many exciting problems to go after. I wish and hope that people will think a little more carefully and deliberately about what problems they go after, and the consequences of the problems that they solve,” he says.

Richardson is currently working on an abdominal brace for Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) patients – people who feel lightheaded after standing up – that is currently in clinical trials. While he is always eager to tackle different projects, as an educator, he believes the most important part of academia is training the next generation of engineers.

“I can only do a couple projects a year, but I can teach a hundred students every year that can then themselves go and do great things.”

Guest Post by Arianna Lee, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Class of 2025.

Following the people and events that make up the research community at Duke