Tuesday, February 25, 2020

OU-OUHSC Symposium registration and poster submission open now

Abstract submission for the Fourth Annual OU-OUHSC IBEST Symposium is open!!!

Graduates and undergraduates from all STEM majors with an interest in medical technology fields are encouraged to submit an abstract research poster to the annual poster competition. The top three winners will bring home cash prizes! Please remember to register for the event prior to submitting an abstract.


The symposium is aimed to bring together the science and engineering community from the OU Norman campus and the clinicians and scientists from the OU Health Sciences Center campus. Through engaging clinicians, entrepreneurs, basic scientists, engineers, and key players from the bioscience industry, the OU Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Technology (IBEST) is committed to building new partnerships and spreading awareness. Leadership of the symposium includes members of both campuses, including clinical input to ensure a welcoming and enabling environment for clinicians to attend. High-level presentations and focused research talks will both showcase the exciting new capabilities and State-wide developments in the areas of biomedical engineering and healthcare



Tuesday, January 28, 2020

SBME Director travels to France with Norman mayor

Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering Director, Dr. Michael Detamore, recently traveled to Clermont-Ferrand, France with Mayor Breea Clark to celebrate Norman’s 25-year anniversary with our sister city. 

Dr. Detamore served as one of ten delegates representing Norman, and participated in meetings, tours, and visits with the group while in France.  

Friday, January 24, 2020

BME student selected for prestigious grant

Gokhan Gunay, a graduate Biomedical Engineering student at the University of Oklahoma, was recently selected as a recipient of a Sigma Xi Grant.

The Sigma Xi Grants in Aid of Research (GIAR) program encourages close working relationships between students and mentors and promotes scientific excellence and achievement through hands-on learning. The program is highly competitive, only granting funding to 12%-15% of applicants. 

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer, with a 47% survival rate within 5 years. Gunay and his team, under the supervision of Dr. Handan Acar, are researching techniques for specific drug delivery to small tumors by developing models in the lab and engineering polymer-based nanoparticles to target the tumors and deliver anti-cancer drugs. The Sigma Xi grant will fund the materials used for the formation of spheroid models and for preparation of nanoparticles. 


Pictured is the Ovarian cancer spheroids produced in the Acar lab.



Wednesday, November 13, 2019

BME student presents poster at Society for Neuroscience Conference in Chicago

OU BME graduate student Julia Tang presented her poster “Big-Data Analytics of Human Brain Network Dynamics: A Simultaneous EEG-fMRI Study” at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in Chicago this October. Congratulations, Julia!


Wednesday, November 6, 2019

SBME Seminar Series: Larry McEnerney

This Friday, November 8, the SBME Seminar Series will continue with a seminar from Dr. Larry McEnerney, Director of Writing Programs at the University of Chicago. Dr. McEnerney will present “Writing Effectively for Biomedical Engineering: The Value of Creating Value” at 1:30 p.m. in Gallogly Hall Room 127. See you there!

Saturday, November 2, 2019

OU BME seniors win award at prestigious engineering competition

Four Biomedical Engineering undergraduates from the University of Oklahoma won a prestigious award in the Coulter College Program, a rigorous nationwide engineering design competition. Accompanied by Professor Marc Moore, OU seniors Daniel Cheong, James Elias, Benjamin Seibert, and Osamah Mian flew to Minneapolis to participate in the product innovation and biomedical engineering competition hosted by the Biomedical Engineering Society. This is the first year OU students have competed in the program: “I had no idea what it was until we got there” says Elias. However, the newness of the program and the stiff competition they faced didn’t faze Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian, who won the award for “Best Venture Capital Pitch for Diabetes Disease Management.”
The Coulter College program is a hybrid of a training program and competition that fuses the complexity and innovation of Biomedical Engineering with the ingenuity and nuance of business. Twelve teams from top BME programs across the country were given one of three problems facing doctors and patients: hypertension management, heart valve defect, or diabetes management, and were tasked to invent, design, and market a feasible solution to their assigned problem. Aided by business professionals and doctors, the teams developed their idea over several days and presented their idea in a venture capital pitch setting. Late nights and early mornings were the reality for these high-achieving students as they prepared for the presentation, “It was one giant whirlwind of a weekend,” says Cheong. The OU team competed against top BME schools from across the nation, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan, and the University of Akron. 
Given their problem area, diabetes management, Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian began the competition with an idea in mind: an app that could check the glucose levels of a diabetic. The idea morphed into a portable device like a phone case before the team, with help from their business mentors and design professionals, decided on a publicly available testing option. As the team researched the current products in diabetes management, they discovered the current medical need for this design. One in three Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic, and the team knew their design could make a difference in raising awareness: “We can help save people,” says Elias. 
As they continued researching their idea, the team met with industry professionals to determine the logistics of pitching, marketing, and developing their product. “At the end of the day, engineering is the first step, and the business and marketing comes next,” says Mian. This business experience, he says, is “very valuable for engineering students to have. Not all schools emphasize it, but OU does.” These business and marketing elements of their design not only helped them win the competition, but have also provided these students with opportunities beyond the program. 
Even after the Coulter College Program, Cheong, Elias, Seibert, and Mian are continuing to work on their diabetes management project as their senior capstone. Alongside applying to medical school and making plans for post-graduation, they are working to secure a patent for their design. With help from entrepreneurship professionals, the team is beginning the process of expanding their design into a fully-fledged business.
All four students credit their success in the Coulter College Program to their education at the University of Oklahoma: “We were only capable of [winning this award] because the BME program here is amazing. Having this new program has given us the opportunity to grow up with the program as it grows to the best BME program in the region,” says Mian.





Friday, November 1, 2019

SBME Student Spotlight: Daniel Cheong

The first student in our BME student spotlight series is Daniel Cheong. Daniel is a third-year student from Muskogee, Oklahoma and is currently the president of the OU Biomedical Engineering Society. He got involved in BMES his freshman year and served as the treasurer for a year before assuming his current role as president. One of his favorite BMES memories is performing a sodium alginate experiment with touring high school students and teaching them how to cross-link hydrogels in 3-D printed neuron molds. Post-graduation, Daniel will be applying to medical schools and aiming to complete his M.D. or M.D. Ph.D.