A Legacy of Innovation
Michigan BME provides leadership in education, training and cutting-edge research by translating science and engineering to solve important challenges in medicine and life sciences to the benefit of humanity.
Ours is one of the oldest programs in the country, with a history that includes early work with lifesaving clinical devices like the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) heart-lung bypass machine and implantable electrodes that stimulate or stabilize brain function.
More recently the department has shifted its focus from designing devices to engineering at a more fundamental biological level – engineering tissues, changing genes, and engineering artificial organs.
Department Mission
BME provides leadership in education, training and cutting-edge research by translating science and engineering to solve important challenges in medicine and life sciences to the benefit of humanity.
BME Timeline
1962 Biomedical Engineering Graduate program established
1996 Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department Founded
1997 Combined B.S.E./M.S.E. program established
2000 Undergraduate program established
2003 Carl A. Gerstacker Building opens
2005 Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership
2006 ABET accreditation
2006 Lurie Biomedical Engineering Building opens
2012 BME becomes a joint department in the College of Engineering and the Medical School
2021 LBME 1st floor renovated adding BME commons, ideation, hands-on lab, and fabrication spaces
2022 Inaugural Glenn V. Edmonson lecture and BME Symposium established