Dr. Mitchell B. Schaffler, formerly Director of Orthopedic Research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, joins the faculty in the Biomedical Engineering Department as the Wallace Coulter Presidential Professor on September 15, 2008. Dr. Schaffler is a world authority on mechanisms of bone remodeling in osteoporosis and disuse and has made important contributions to our understanding of mechanotransduction in bone. He will establish a new laboratory in Steinman Hall to continue his studies and begin teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in his area of specialization.

Our own Yuliya Vengrenyuk was awarded first prize for her poster "Micro-CT based analysis of a new paradigm for vulnerable plaque rupture" at the 6th International Conference on Medical Innovations, in Vienna, Austria May 30-31. The cash prize is funded by a Mimics Innovation Aard. Her paper with the same title was chosen as one of seven papers to appear in a special issue of Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics. Prof. Luis Cardoso and Prof. Sheldon Weinbaum are co-authors on both the poster and paper. Congratulations to Yuliya and her co-authors

The Biomedical Engineering department acknowledges the tremendous accomplishments of the 2008 graduating class. Members of the 2008 class have been awarded a range of competitive national and international awards. We wish them continued success as they pursue graduate research, medical studies, and professional positions in some of the world leading BME institutions and companies.

Alina Levchuck, City College BME class of 2008, was awarded a prestigious Whitaker International Fellowship. Alina will be going to ETH Zurich in Switzerland, to work in Dr. Ralph Muller's Biomechanics laboratory on the project entitled "Ultrastructural assessment of bone development using synchrotron radiation based nano-computed tomography"

The City College of New York (CCNY) was selected to receive one of the first grants awarded through New York State’s new $600 million multi-year stem cell research program. The funding will strengthen CCNY’s stem cell research capabilities by supporting training of researchers and infrastructure development.

As the current frontier in biomedical research, stem cells offer great promise for cell-based therapies and tissue engineering for the next generation of regenerative medicine as well as scientific understanding of developmental biology. Stem cell research holds out hope to people who suffer from such debilitating and life-threatening ailments as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and cancer.

“While CCNY faculty members now can conduct biomedical research related to stem cells, these funds will help us develop long-term research capabilities using human embryonic stem cells,” said Dr. John Tarbell, Wallace Coulter Distinguished Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering, The Grove School of Engineering at The City College. Dr. Tarbell and Dr. Sihong Wang, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, are co-Principal Investigators on the grant.

Two new science research buildings to be built on The City College campus will provide extended space and facilities for development of stem cell research at CCNY, Dr. Tarbell noted. It is anticipated that groundbreaking for these structures will take place during the spring of 2008.

Professor Weinbaum, who joined the CCNY faculty in 1967, retired from teaching at the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester. However, he continues to advise students and conduct research at the College, supported by five grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Karla's paper titled "Deformation-Dependent Enzyme Cleavage of Collagen" was co-authored with Peter A. Torzilli, and Jonathon Bourne. The work was performed at Torzilli's Laboratory for Soft Tissue Research at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Karla Wyatt is a M.S. student at CCNY and Torzilli is member of the NYCBE.

Class of 2007 BME B.E. graduate, Jeniffer Walz, becomes Grove School of Engineering Valedictorian.

This Spring, Sihong Wang joins the faculty of the CCNY BME department.

"..with architecture that echoes the City College of New York's Gothic Revival style, shines the movie-perfect example of quiet excellence."

Engineering innovations in cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment will be highlighted at a symposium presented by The City College of New York and Memorial Sloan-Kettering (MSKCC), one of the nation premier cancer centers. The conference featured severel ongoing collaboration between the BME Department and MSKCC. View the full program
The keynote speaker, Rakesh K Jain delivered the 8th annual CCNY BME Benjamin Zweifach lecture.
Past Zweifach Memorial lectures at CCNY:
YC Fung from UCSD, 1999
Shu Chien from UCSD, 2000
Peter Davies from UPENN, 2001
Jim Hudspeth from the Albert Einstein college of Medicine, 2002
Michael Gimbrone from the Harvard medical school, 2003
Bob Langer from MIT, 2004
Robert Nerem from Georgia Tech, 2005

Dr Peter Torzilli, a founding member of the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering recieved the 2006 H.R. Lissner award of the ASME. This is the highest award for achievement given by its Bioengineering Division.

Yuliya Vengrenyuk, a graduate student in the CUNY-CCNY Biomedical Engineering PhD program took third place honors in a Young Investigators Award competition at the American College of Cardiologists 55th Annual Meeting.

Thomas Radman, a graduate student in the CUNY-CCNY Biomedical Engineering PhD program took honorable mention for work on the effects on enviromental electrics fields (cell phones, power lines) on the brain.

Andrew Grove, CCNY class of 1960 and co-founder of the Intel Corporation, has donated $26 million to the School of Engineering at the City College of New York. Press Release

Robert Nerem delivers the 7th annual Benjamin Zweifach lecture at the City College of New York. Event Images
Past Zweifach Memorial lectures:

YC Fung from UCSD, 1999
Shu Chien from UCSD, 2000
Peter Davies from UPENN, 2001
Jim Hudspeth from the Albert Einstein college of Medicine, 2002
Michael Gimbrone from the Harvard medical school, 2003
Bob Langer from MIT, 2004

A new faculty member joins the department this fall. Luis Cardoso will compliment the department's strengths in biomechanics, signal/image processing, bioinstrumentation and mechanotransduction in bone.

Congratulations to BME Ph.D., candidate Kelly Emerton who won 1st place in the ASME 2005 Bioengineering Conference poster competition.

The concept is featured in the Nature News. It was published in Wu Q., Andreopoulos Y., Weinbaum S., et al. Phys. Rev. Lett., 93. 194501.

Amidst great fanfare and day long festivities the BME Department celebrated the long awaited Inauguration of its new facilities on Nov. 5, 2004. The Department wants to thank Stephen Eli, the architect, for the masterful design of its new offices, laboratories and conference room. The event which included a keynote talk by Bob Langer, 36 student posters, talks by leaders from seven of our hospital partners in the NYCBE and an official ribbon cutting ceremony and reception with CUNY Chancellor Matt Goldstein and CCNY President Gregory Williams presiding. The lunch event, which drew over 150 guests, featured President Peter Katona of the Whitaker Foundation and President Sue Van of the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation who have provided CCNY's BME program with three Special Opportunity awards and 50-50 matching funds for the entire renovation. BME Department Inauguration Photo Album.

CUNY and Wallace Coulter Distinguished Professor of BME, John Tarbell, received the H. R. Lissner award of the ASME at its 2004 International Conference and Exposition in Annaheim.
This is the highest award for achievement given by its Bioengineering Division. Professor Tarbell is just the third chemical engineer to have received this award from the nation's largest mechanical engineering society. He joins Professors Cowin and Weinbaum as BME's third Lissner awardee making CCNY the only institution other than Georgia Tech to have received this distinction. Professor Tarbell, Chair of BME, is widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to the Penn State artificial heart program, the mechanics of heart valves, in vitro experiments on the effect of fluid shear stress on the permeability of vascular endotheium and mass transfer aspects of arterial disease. He is the author of over 140 technical papers and is past President of BMES (2003).

The City College of New York has been awarded a $1.3 million grant by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) to boost science education and encourage more minorities to pursue scientific careers.
The grant will be used to support initiatives developed by the HHMI Undergraduate Science Education Program at CCNY, a collaborative effort between the College’s Division of Science and the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering.
City College President Gregory H. Williams hailed the award and said: “It is critically important to introduce exciting new interdisciplinary research fields to our students, and provide them with a coherent and compelling pathway to participate in research. The HHMI award will help us to meet this challenge.”

Over 100 students and faculty packed the Amsterdam Room on May 18 to attend the ever more popular annual event.

CUNY Distinguished Professor Stephen Cowin is joining his illustrious colleague Sheldon Weinbaum to the National Academy of Engineering. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

Dr. Cowin, who is the co-founder of the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering, has authored over 200 research papers and eight books.
A pioneer in modeling the adaptive behavior of bone, his recent work in the coupling of local cell-level mechanics and the adaptive behavior of bone may lead to important clinical applications relating to surgical implant of orthopedic prostheses

Two new junior faculty have joined the department this Fall:
Marom Bikson earned his Ph.D. in BME from Case Western Reserve University and comes from the University of Birmingham (UK) where he studied neuronal activity in central networks.
Lucas Parra received his Ph.D. in Physics from Maximilian University in Munich (Germany) and comes from the Sarnoff Corporation where he was a group leader in Adaptive Image and Signal Processing.