Biomedical Engineering: May Project Extension

Leah Gransberry, 2025

For my Honors capstone research this year, I am researching Biomedical Engineering because this is a field that I am considering for my May Project internship. Biomedical Engineering, or BME, focuses on finding and creating different tools and advances to help the healthcare field. BME uses aspects of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, mathematics, and even computer science to help improve human health. Biomedical engineers also have a say in the government for establishing safety standards for different medical devices as well as developing new diagnostic tools.

 BME is a broad field full of so many different specialties. Some of these specialties include biomaterials, biomechanics, bioinformatics, biomechatronics, neuroengineering, and pharmaceutical engineering. Some popular specialities are biomaterials and bionanotechnology. Biomaterials is the study and function of materials that are naturally occurring or created in a lab that will be used in medical devices or in contact with a biological system. These materials can be a variety of things like metals, ceramics, polymers, glasses, carbons, and composite materials. These materials are used to make devices like an artificial heart or a hip joint. 

Bionanotechnology is the research of DNA to help create new tools for science and medicine. It helps us understand life on a molecular level in order for there to be advances in manufacturing, electronics, and medicine. One example of this type of study is gene editing. Genome editing involves scientists and researchers changing the DNA of an organism to prevent a disease or some type of genetic disorder. Biomedical Engineers who specialize in this have created CRISPR which makes gene editing easier, cheaper, and quicker. While this is great for advances in the science world, it comes with its ethical concerns.

While the BME field is full of many technological and medical advances, it requires ethical responsibility. When creating new tools and innovations, there is always a concern in the BME world about these developments getting into the wrong hands. For example, CRISPR is a great tool for gene editing and is currently only meant to be used for animals; however, there are concerns about this tool being used on humans. CRISPR is great for preventing genetic diseases, but can be used wrongly to change a human's phenotype before the child is born. This means that if a child's genotype was set for them to have black hair, a scientist could use CRISPR to change this child's hair to blonde. People fear that this practice could lead to the unethical creation of “designer babies.” The concern is that instead of CRISPR being used to prevent something for the safety of humanity, it could be used to create something for the pleasure of those who want it. 

Another ethical concern in the field of BME is the disparity between minorities and white men who work in the field. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, “Black women represent less than 7% of doctoral candidates in science and engineering, and less than 9% of the STEM workforce.” STEM fields require a group effort, and researchers have discovered that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams because with diversity comes different ideas and perspectives which are crucial to create new tools and innovations in the BME world.

The future of Biomedical Engineering is full of many designs and innovations to better our healthcare systems. One specialty that is new and rapidly growing is biomechatronics. Biomechatronics is the study of designs that can interact with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous system. An example of this is a robotic prosthesis. The goal of this specialty is to help assist and enhance the motor controls of someone who has been impaired due to trauma or a birth defect. Gene editing is also expected to continue growing as a field of study in BME, and this technology will eventually allow researchers to stop certain animals from carrying diseases that might be harmful to humans. 

In the second semester, I plan to narrow down my research and focus on the biomedical engineering specialization of biomechatronics or biomaterials.  I hope to shadow a biomedical engineer or a medical professional to learn about different biomedical tools used in hospitals and doctors’ offices. I will analyze the different aspects of the tool and maybe learn how to use and improve the tool. This will not only help me learn more about the field of biomedical engineering, but also help me narrow down what specialization I would like to pursue in this field.