Introduction to Biomedical Engineering

This text has three aims:

• Explain the range of bioengineering activity in order to orient starting engineering students.
• Provide a sense of how engineering differs from science.
• Present some achievable depth on some salient science and engineering facets that drive a cross section of bioengineering practice.

Emphasis is placed on biomedical engineering, while also providing some material that is relevant to bioresource engineering and biochemical engineering.

The level of the discussion and homework problems are geared to freshmen college students who possess backgrounds in basic chemistry and physics. Chapters are provided that cover some highlights of modern biology and physiology to even out the life science backgrounds of the students. A chapter that explains how quantitative analysis is performed is often preceded by a chapter that provides a pictorial description of important phenomena. The mathematical level is primarily algebraic, but repeated use of some calculus techniques (e.g., optimization, separation of variables) in different problem contexts is done to challenge students with advanced placement and to motivate others on the relevance of their concurrent coursework in mathematics.

The first half of the book covers molecular- and cell-level phenomena, and applications featuring

• Enzyme-based diagnostic technology
• Metabolic engineering
• Tissue Engineering

The second half of the text covers human-scale bioengineering featuring biomechanical, biomaterial, and electrical sensing applications such as

• Human locomotion analysis and pace optimization
• Branching in the circulatory system and pressure management
• Magnetic resonance and signal processing basics