Alumni

Biomedical engineering’s Career Symposium returns for its third year

Alexander James Servantez — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 20:10:17 +0000

Biomedical engineering’s Career Symposium returns for its third year Alexander Jame… Fri, 10/11/2024 - 14:10

Alexander Servantez

More than 160 CU Boulder students put on their best business attire on Monday for the third annual Biomedical Engineering Career Symposium. Their mission? Go toe-to-toe with the workforce.

The symposium, organized by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and run by students, provided an opportunity for students to connect and learn from various company representatives in the med-tech industry. It featured company information sessions, company tabling, product demonstrations, and one-on-one meetings with experienced industry professionals.

Fourteen companies and organizations, including CONMED, Medtronic and others, were in attendance to recruit some of Boulder’s finest aspiring biomedical engineers. In past years, students have received job and internship opportunities with the help of the symposium. At the very least, students walked away with valuable insight into the diverse career paths the industry has to offer.

This year’s iteration of the event looked a little different. �鶹��Ժ were required to attend a ProReady workshop in order to register for the symposium. Designed by Engineering Career Services, the ProReady initiative supports student career development, and these workshops helped prepare students to speak to company representatives in a professional setting.

“Last year, we had companies telling us that students were struggling to interact with representatives,” said Vivian Shi, a third-year student and BMES Career Symposium Committee member. “This year, our biggest focus was changing that, and I think we did a good job."

A BME student chats with a company representative at the 2024 BME Career Symposium.

Many of the students in attendance echoed some of those same sentiments. BME senior Christian Moon, who has been to multiple career symposiums, saw first hand how the workshop and symposium has affected his comfortability and confidence.

“Being able to practice interviews is nice,” Moon said. “It can be awkward to talk to people and talk about yourself. But it’s good practice and useful when interacting with people who are actually in the industry.”

Putting together an event like this is no easy task. On top of their own individual coursework, the BMES Career Symposium Committee spent long, tireless nights bringing the ballroom to life for their fellow BME classmates.

Clare Keeler, BMES Career Symposium committee chair, recalled the extensive planning involved, including difficulties wrangling commitments from companies or finding the perfect room arrangement. However, seeing vibrant and life-changing relationships being built during the event made all their hard work worth it.

“Overall, it makes me very happy that I was able to provide this experience for other students. It was a really long process dating back to April. My goal was to expand the symposium, and it just feels amazing seeing it come to life,” Keeler said.

Some company representatives gave their praise for this year’s symposium, including CONMED representative and former CU Boulder alumna Mia Fox.

Fox co-founded the BME Career Symposium and was a part of the BME program’s first graduating class in 2023. She knows first hand just how difficult coordinating this event can be, and she was proud of the committee for building on the legacy her class started during her time on campus.

“The committee has done a good job taking feedback from both students and company representatives,” Fox said. “They ran with that and they did a really good job.

“This event is unique. It’s different. It’s run by students, for students. I hope everyone continues to see the importance in that going forward.”

More than 160 of CU Boulder's finest Biomedical Engineering students attended the third annual Career Symposium in search of post-college opportunities.

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Three male BME students talking to a male company representative at the 2024 BME Career Symposium.

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Three current BME students talking to a company representative at the 2024 BME Career Symposium.

Advancing regenerative medicine as a CU Boulder biomedical engineer

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 16:25:52 +0000

Advancing regenerative medicine as a CU Boulder biomedical engineer Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/07/2022 - 10:25

Jeff Zehnder

Kaitlin Mccreery (MechEngr MS’20, BioEngr PhD’22) is pushing the frontiers of human cartilage research as a biomedical engineering PhD graduate from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Mccreery is one of the first students to earn a PhD from the program, which began at CU Boulder in 2020 to bridge the gaps between science, engineering, and medicine.

“I am in the field of mechanobiology. It’s all about how cells respond to mechanical cues from their environments and how those cues affect cell differentiation, stem cell fate, and ultimately tissue architecture. There are a lot of questions here that haven’t been answered yet,” Mccreery said.

Her research is focused at the microscopic level and even smaller – on atomic-level interactions that determine how cells behave and build tissues.

“It’s difficult to disentangle the biomechanical and biophysical cues. We want to better predict things, but getting cause and effect determined is nuanced,” she said.

The research has significant implications for regenerative medicine, an area of growing importance to humanity.

Mccreery spent her masters and PhD conducting experimental research on cells under the direction of Corey Neu, a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering. She is continuing in his lab this fall as a postdoctoral associate, expanding her investigations into multiscale modeling, using big data methodologies and supercomputers for biomedical research.

“There is a huge repository of data available that is underutilized. Anyone funded by the National Institutes of Health has to upload their data to government servers for anyone to use. A lot more medical breakthroughs could happen by integrating these large datasets. It’s a new frontier,” Mccreery said.

Building a career in biomedicine is the culmination of long-held aspirations for Mccreery, who has been interested in science since childhood.

“I’ve always wanted to be a scientist,” she said. “I did a project in middle school studying a fungus affecting amphibians in my hometown. I got really into research.”

It was perhaps an unlikely drive for Mccreery, who grew up in a household with a strong arts emphasis – her father is a professional cellist, her mother a professional violinist – but her parents encouraged her interests.

“For generations, people in my family have been musicians. I’m kind of the black sheep. Everyone else is in performing arts,” Mccreery said.

A North Carolina native, Mccreery enrolled at Duke University for her bachelor’s, earning a degree in physics. She was drawn to CU Boulder for her graduate education in part by the university’s collaborative culture.

“CU Boulder has a really great cooperative research environment. I’ve worked in many different labs during my time here. There’s cutting edge research happening, but people aren’t competitive about it. Science can’t happen in a bubble. To be a good engineer is to be an excellent teammate,” she said.

Mccreery’ hopes to continue a career in research long term and next year will begin a position with the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany. There, she will be studying stem cell mechanobiology and chromatin mechanics using advanced microscopy and computational methods.

“This is mission-driven biomedical research,” Mccreery said. “I feel like the area I’m working in has the greatest need.”

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The path one alumnus took from engineer to heart surgeon

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 20:42:11 +0000

The path one alumnus took from engineer to heart surgeon Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/03/2022 - 13:42

Alumnus Michael Lewis (MechEngr’00) took an interdisciplinary education to the next level. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and working at Boeing for a year, he discovered another way to help people – through medicine.

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CU Boulder spinoff company develops technology that could treat COVID-19 complications

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 16:29:08 +0000

CU Boulder spinoff company develops technology that could treat COVID-19 complications Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/18/2021 - 10:29

Rachel Leuthauser

Respirogen's oxygen microbubbles take on a thick liquid form once they are fabricated. It is this liquid that would be injected into the body to oxygenate patients.

A College of Engineering and Applied Science spinoff company is on the verge of starting human trials for technology that could change the landscape for treating COVID-19 patients with one of the virus’s more severe complications.

Respirogen, a company whose research is led by Biomedical Engineering Program Director Mark Borden and founded by Borden’s former student, Paul Mountford (PhDMechEngr’15), has developed microbubbles that can deliver oxygen to the blood stream independent of the lungs.

The technology can be used to treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) – a condition that compromises the lungs and has no cure. ARDS is caused by various illnesses or circumstances that inflame the lungs, including COVID-19, sepsis, pneumonia, near drowning or a drug reaction.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, ARDS had a 45% mortality rate and contributed to the death of 80,000 patients in the U.S. every year. From March 2020 to October 2021, there have been roughly 700,000 deaths from COVID-mediated ARDS, according to Mountford.

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How oxygen microbubbles would be injected into the body
How oxygen microbubbles could help patients with COVID-19 complications

Supplying oxygen is the main treatment for ARDS, and after a year when the nation experienced a shortage of mechanical ventilators, the need for novel treatments is critical. While most research focuses on anti-inflammatory agents, Respirogen is in its own space thanks to Borden’s potentially lifesaving oxygen microbubbles (OMBs).

“It would be a new pharmaceutical that could be in every hospital and every ambulance in the country,” said Borden. “It could be a gamechanger, because if you have a patient with ARDS right now, it can be a death sentence. We need to start saving lives.”

Developing the oxygen microbubbles

Professor Mark Borden, Respirogen CSO

Borden’s research began while pursuing his PhD at the University of California, Davis. He was studying microbubbles for ultrasound contrast, focusing specifically on the technology’s lipid shell.

Borden said he built a device to measure the lipid shell’s oxygen permeability, becoming the first person to do so. His research mapped the microstructure of a bubble’s surface and proved that the bubbles can be stabilized. This work propelled him to the forefront of engineering bubble technology.

“I became an expert in microbubbles by that point because most of the research prior to that had been done by industry,” Borden explained. “It was done for the purposes of minimizing costs. They were product development exercises rather than scientific studies.”

The research led to new ideas about how microbubbles could be used, including a new method to oxygenize patients suffering from ARDS.

“We know that after OMBs are delivered, a patient’s blood-oxygen levels rise and their blood-CO2 levels drop,” said Mountford. “This means that patients who may go on mechanical ventilation can be given an OMB dose and potentially kept off the ventilator. The goal of OMBs is to better ARDS patient outcomes, whether that be keeping them on mechanical support or reducing the impact mechanical ventilation has on their quality of life.”

Borden and previous colleagues thought about injecting the oxygen-filled microbubbles right into a patient’s veins, until realizing shooting 100 to 200 milliliters of oxygen into the bloodstream every minute would not be a practical option.

When Borden joined the CU Boulder faculty in 2010, he tested an idea brought to him by Mechanical Engineering PhD graduate and current University of Nebraska faculty member Benjamin Terry – to deliver OMBs through a patient’s peritoneal cavity.

Soon after, Borden approached Mountford about creating Respirogen and they brought on another ME graduate, Robby Scribner (MechEngr’10), as the company’s director of operations. The group also teamed up with CEO Bob Scribner, an experienced startup executive, and principal investigator Keely Buesing, MD, a trauma surgeon at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

While this group found success using the peritoneal cavity during the large animal trials, they discovered this method could also be problematic. Surgery would be necessary to establish a port into the peritoneal cavity and multiple OMB injections may be needed.

After hitting that second obstacle, the Respirogen team came up with a new idea – using the colon.

The perfect solution

Mountford and Scribner handle large syringes filled with 1300ml of OMBs in the Respirogen facility.

“We have avoided the colon because everybody kind of squirms when they think about it, but on the flip side, it is the perfect solution to the problem,” said Borden. “The beautiful thing is that it works. That is what matters most.”

The notion of breathing rectally may seem peculiar, but the Respirogen team found that the hesitancy is not warranted. The colon provides easy access to the bloodstream, without surgery.

The colon is a highly vascularized tissue. One of the organ’s main functions is to remove water from stool, absorbing the water so it can be recycled back through the body. This means the colon could also absorb oxygen from OMBs and send it into the bloodstream, according to Borden.

The colon itself is easy to access as well, making multiple OMB deliveries possible. Borden explained that OMBs could be inserted rectally, flushed out with an enema and then efficiently placed back into the colon.

“There are a lot of advantages and when we redid the experiments with the colon, we were just as successful,” said Borden. “No benefits were lost by using the colon.”

The Respirogen team also pointed out that the colon is already used to administer medication to patients experiencing severe conditions. One example is when patients in hospice need pain relievers and their throats are too dry to swallow medication.

Respirogen will soon publish its OMB study involving large animals, which has been funded by the Air Force. The company has set up a first-in-human clinical trial and is looking for investors to fund it.

Treating COVID-19 complications

The COVID-19 pandemic has made treatments like Respirogen’s OMBs more important than ever, especially since there has not been a single drug approved to treat ARDS over the last 30 years, according to Borden.

Even COVID-19 patients who do not develop severe ARDS could benefit from the oxygen-filled microbubbles, Borden explained, since oxygenating the patient is a key goal in clinical management.

“We are trying to avoid mechanical ventilation, where you have a patient in an induced coma, otherwise spontaneous breathing is fighting against the machine,” said Borden. “You want to avoid that because once you start down that road, it is very hard to come off it. Supplemental oxygenation with microbubbles is such an incredibly simple solution.”

A 60ml syringe filled with OMBs shows how water within the solution can separate from the OMBs.

Throughout the pandemic, investors and the federal government have focused their coronavirus-related funding on vaccines. Mountford said that while vaccinations are one of our best lines of defense, novel therapies are needed when vaccines are not enough or if people choose not to receive their shot.

“Therapies treat symptoms from a multitude of diseases,” said Mountford. “If ARDS occurs from vaccination breakthroughs or a lack of vaccination, doctors need various ways to oxygenate patients and shed CO2. COVID-19 has not changed Respirogen's mission, but rather its ARDS patients.”

Overtime, the emphasis will likely shift from vaccines to management of the respiratory conditions that the virus leaves behind. That potential timeline would line up with Respirogen’s work.

The company’s goal is to present their human clinical data from the phase one trial sometime next year. The team wants to move into phase three human trials within five years. The next steps would be insurance reimbursement and clinical adoption.

“We do want to get this in patients’ hands as quickly as possible,” said Borden. “But we also realize that many times, medical technologies take years to be adopted. In either scenario, my lab will continue to do the research. We want to focus on doing good science and good engineering, and then let the marketplace do its job.”

Respirogen has been the only company in the oxygen microbubble space and presented their findings at the ARDS Drug Development Summit in July. Last month, a Japanese company presented a similar enteral method with liquid perfluorocarbon. Borden said the idea is such a departure from other ARDS treatments, which focus on inflammation, that it is beneficial to have more researchers studying enteral oxygenation routes.

After a year when the nation experienced a shortage of mechanical ventilators to help treat patients with severe COVID-19 complications, Professor Mark Borden's company Respirogen presents another treatment option: oxygen microbubbles.

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One of BME's first graduates reflects on how the program strengthened his resume

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Sep 2021 17:20:47 +0000

One of BME's first graduates reflects on how the program strengthened his resume Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/07/2021 - 11:20

Rachel Leuthauser

John Myers (MBioEngr’21) was the first student to graduate from the Biomedical Engineering Program with a thesis-based master’s degree. Now, he has a more competitive edge as he plans his future education and career.

John Myers (MBioEngr'21)

If it wasn’t for the COVID-19 pandemic, John Myers may have never ended up at the University of Colorado Boulder.

After receiving his master’s degree in biochemistry from Oxford University in 2020, Myers thought he would either continue his education or get a job. Opportunities continuously fell through because of the pandemic, until Myers connected with the director of the Biomedical Engineering Program at CU Boulder, Professor Mark Borden.

“I found out about the program and Professor Borden from my father,” Myers explained. “While I was writing up my thesis last year, my parents were trying to help me find opportunities for the following year. My father works at CU, which is part of why he suggested the program to me, to be closer to family during the pandemic.”

Myers’ father, Professor Chris Myers, knows the success of the College of Engineering and Applied Science well. He is currently the chair of the Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering Department at CU Boulder.

Myers said his father encouraged him to get in contact with Borden. Following a discussion with Borden and biomedical engineering Professor Corey Neu, Myers decided to apply. Upon his acceptance, Myers became one of the first people to enroll in the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program.

“John was the first MS thesis student,” Borden said. “That requires a formal research component with a written thesis, in addition to the coursework.”

Myers focused his research on the effectiveness of ultrasound contrast agents. He said the Biomedical Engineering Program’s curriculum had a great impact on his understanding in that area of study.

John Myers exploring Colorado.

“In the sense of what courses I could sign up for, it was quite a great experience,” Myers said. “Coming off an education in both the United States and England, I had some background missing in biomedical imaging. The good thing about being in the Biomedical Engineering Program at CU Boulder was that there were opportunities to try to fill in some of those gaps.”

Myers took classes in life sciences and electrical engineering to broaden his perspective. He said adding these subjects to his resume makes him more competitive when applying to PhD programs or jobs.

“I still don't have a physics degree for example, but I have a much broader background in some of the abilities that someone with a physics degree might have, especially in my area of interest,” Myers explained.

With his second master’s degree and an abundance of new knowledge in-hand, Myers said he is now looking for a doctorate position or a job in research.

“My dream kind of position would be to just to find a group I enjoy working for,” Myers said. “That’s the most important bit, to be able to have a good working relationship with whomever you have to work for.”

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Biomedical engineering career paths

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 19:43:42 +0000

Biomedical engineering career paths Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/31/2021 - 13:43

Demand for biomedical engineers in the United States is high, and it’s only going to keep growing.

Employment for biomedical engineers is expected to grow five percent by 2029, faster than the average for all occupations, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That translates to about 1,400 biomedical engineering job openings each year, for a total of 22,200 biomedical engineers being employed in 2029.

“The future is really bright for these students because of this possibility,” Professor Mark Bordon, the program director for the University of Colorado’s Biomedical Engineering Program, said. “It’s a popular major because it deals with something that’s a fundamental importance to everybody. Which is how does the human body work. It’s at the intersection of medicine and engineering.”

Career paths for CU Boulder BME students

Biomedical engineering students at CU Boulder get a multi-disciplinary education in chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering to prepare for their future careers. The coursework gives them the skills to go into one of three fields: industry, research or medical school.

Industry

MedTech
- Develops medical devices to detect and treat disease, improve quality of life and improve human performance
Consulting
- Work with medical organizations, research institutions and companies to provide guidance and recommendations
Clinical Engineer
- In a hospital:
  - Purchase, install and maintain hospital equipment
  - Work with physicians and patients on using the technology
- In a clinical trial:
  - Perform trials on new medical technology and devices

Industry Professional Development

Research

Biomedical research is well-funded
- The National Institutes of Health 2021 budget was $43 billion, compared to the National Science Foundation's budget of $8.5 billion.
- More funding means more research opportunities
Various PhD programs available
- Inside discipline: Biomedical engineering PhD
- Outside discipline: Other engineering programs or schools of medicine

Research Opportunities

Medical School

Pursue a medical degree to become a physician or surgeon
Doctor and surgeon positions are expected to grow five percent by 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Pre-Med Opportunities

Biomedical engineering students have multiple opportunities in the job market; including careers in the industry, in research or at medical school.

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