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Biomedical engineering course launched

Over 100 students have taken the new course in biomedical engineering, offered as a second year elective this year, making it one of the most popular options.

The lectures on Oculomotor Control given by physiologist Dr Roger Carpenter were accompanied by a lab in which the students measured eye movements. Not only did this lab give the students a chance to do something a bit different, the fact that they had to go into the Downing Site to the top of the Physiology building was a new experience.

Roger Carpenter commented on the responsiveness of the engineering students: "It is interesting how they look at the equipment and investigate how it works - the medics we usually work with are not at all interested in that side of things." So the interdisciplinary nature of the course has provided useful experience all round, and good to know that our students are a credit to the Department off-site ….

The biomedical course, organized by Richard Prager in CUED, is very much a 'taster', designed to build on principles that the engineers are already familiar with such as control systems, structures and fluids. These are related to Occular motion (control), Flagellae of bacteria (structures), and the principles of flight and how fish swim (fluids). This approach which uses quantitative engineering techniques and applies them to biological systems is already leading to great advances in the field.