Biomedical Engineering
Assistant Professor Nicole Xu has been selected as a recipient of the 2025 Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering. The award provides some of the nation’s most promising early career scientists and engineers flexible funding to test novel ideas and lead research that drives real-world impact.
Researchers explored a fluid-based optical device known as an electrowetting prism to steer lasers at high speeds for advanced imaging applications. This new frontier in miniature lasers opens the door to new technologies in microscopy, LiDAR, optical communications and even brain imaging.
The project, like something straight out of a health sci-fi movie, combines RNA-based gene therapy with tiny microrobots for drug transport to help treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Researchers in Professor Mark Hernandez's lab have discovered that a passive, generally safe ultraviolet light treatment can rapidly inactivate airborne allergens. They believe this approach could serve as an additional tool to help reduce allergens in homes, schools and other indoor environments.
The Biomedical Engineering Program (BME) at CU Boulder is welcoming three new faculty members this fall semester. From responsive biomaterials and pedagogical research to quantum imaging, these talented scientists and engineers bring a wealth of knowledge and passion to our teaching and research missions.
Researchers at CU Boulder have developed a new bioimaging device that can operate with significantly lower power and in an entirely non-mechanical way. It could one day improve detecting eye and even heart conditions.
Nearly 80% of all stroke survivors experience walking issues and turn to ankle braces for increased support, but ankle braces are still very limited and many stroke survivors report no improvements when using them. Assistant Professor Cara Welker is leading a new, collaborative research project that aims to transform the way these assistive devices are designed.
Left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) designed to improve blood flow throughout the body can aid nearly 26 million people globally struggling with heart failure. But these implantable devices come with risks. New research by Assistant Professor Debanjan Mukherjee suggests that studying patient blood flow patterns could help determine who’s at risk of dangerous side effects from LVADs and lead to improvements that could make them safer.
Assistant Professor Carson Bruns is leading the charge on an NSF-funded project that he and his team like to call "robochemistry." Their goal is to create robotic sidekicks that can assist chemists with burdensome or unsafe tasks that they may routinely encounter in a wet lab. But that's not all: this unique blend of bots and beakers can also inspire youth interest in science.
Assistant Professor Kaushik Jayaram, in collaboration with Laura Blumenschein, has received a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop a tiny robot super team capable of navigating a complex maze of machinery and squeeze through the tightest of spaces—like the guts of a jet engine—to potentially perform non-destructive evaluation faster, cheaper and better than ever before.