Our research and educational missions are guided by a vision of understanding the human body as an integrated system. The goal is to be able to predict how changes at the molecular level relate to the cellular, tissue/organ, and whole body level responses. These relationships across length and time scales must be quantitative and explicit.
As realization of this vision is approached, it will enable the rational design of therapeutic strategies and devices and enhance our ability to interpret diagnostic information. This vision leads BME to address specific Grand Challenges of Medicine:
- How do we discover and develop advanced health diagnostic tools to detect and analyze health problems earlier, cheaper, and more accurately? Examples include vascular disease, cancer, infectious agents, and osteoporosis.
- Can we replace and regenerate organs and tissues to treat disease and injury? Examples include arthritis, heart disease, kidney failure, and spinal cord injuries.
- How do we design and deliver drugs to address major illnesses? Examples include cancer, Alzheimers, circulatory problems, and neurological disorders.
The primary mission of the BME department is to educate students to understand the human body as an integrated system through quantitative engineering analysis and to use that understanding to design better therapeutic strategies, devices, and diagnostics. A mission of nearly equal importance is to serve society through research that provides the intellectual foundation to describe the quantitative linkages across scales in the human body and to create from that understanding the tools to improve human health.
The specific goals for the department include:
- Develop BME at Cornell and nationally as an intellectual discipline integrating engineering principles and biology in the context of human health
- Provide an identifiable and sustainable home for BME that will facilitate national recognition of Cornell BME as one of the very best programs in the nation
- Draw on existing faculty strength in BME, while adding new faculty to Cornell who might not otherwise be attracted
- Work with existing engineering departments to enhance the integration of biology into engineering
- Work with life science departments to enhance integration of engineering concepts into the study of biology
- Work with the Weill Medical College and Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine on translating advances in basic biology into clinically useful devices and therapies
- Participate in the campus wide effort in the new life sciences, particularly through support of systems biology and of technological tools for genomics, proteomics, to advance our fundamental understanding of human health
The Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) will bridge biology, medicine, and engineering and be responsible for:
- Developing and delivering undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Biomedical Engineering as the intellectual foundation for the emerging discipline
- Collaborate and coordinate with other programs in facilitating the transfer of life science concepts into engineering and engineering approaches into the life sciences, and catalyzing interactions associated with medicine and human health between biologists, physical scientists, and engineers
- Taking leadership within the Cornell bioengineering community on matters relating life sciences and human health and medicine
- Promoting and enhancing the visibility of the BME community for attracting faculty, students, and research funds
- Collaborating with the Weill Medical College and the Hospital for Special Surgery through joint offerings for students, joint research, and joint faculty appointments
- Work with the College of Veterinary Medicine to combine appropriate animal models and biomedical engineering techniques to improve both human and animal health.
