Tianfu Wu used to dream of the day when cancer could be detected long before it was diagnosed. Now he sees that day dawning because of a system his research group created called the ultrasensitive polymeric sensing system (UPSS), which may detect biomarkers early – well before an illness strikes.

Chen Wu, Cullen College Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, is the winner of a $2,500 Optics and Photonics Education Scholarship from SPIE, the international society advancing light‐based science, engineering and technology. SPIE (formed as the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers) honors those, like Wu, for potential contributions to the field of optics, photonics or related fields.

In the summer of 2015 UH biomedical engineering student Pietro Cicalese found himself surrounded by astonishing squalor in Haiti. The area was densely populated yet there was no water or medical resources for the sick. And the houses – if you could call them that – were shacks.

“I have never seen anything like that. It was very eye opening to see poverty of that scale,” said Cicalese.

A UH biomedical engineer is zeroing in on the gap where nerve meets muscle to bring more precise treatment to stroke patients. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded more than $434,000 to Assistant Professor Yingchun Zhang to delve deep into the neuromuscular junction, the connector of the nerve and muscle fiber, to calculate the exact spot to deliver the dose of motion-restoring Botox.

Neurological disorders like Parkinson’s, the aftermath of stroke, limb loss and paralysis significantly diminish the length and quality of life – affecting about one in six people worldwide. But a growing number of biomedical innovations, driven in large part by an aging population dealing with debilitating health issues, are improving both cognitive and motor function.

Just yesterday it seemed to be an empty office space you probably ignored as you walked off the elevator on the third floor of the Cullen College of Engineering Building Two. What a difference a day – and the Engineering Career Services Center – can make.

As one of the pioneering instructors in the subsea engineering program, Phaneendra Kondapi is a familiar name at the UH Cullen College of Engineering. Now Kondapi is forging new paths at the college once again, this time as the founding director of engineering programs in Katy, Texas.

Imagine an electronic “tattoo” on your skin that could continuously monitor your health, or tiny, biocompatible sensors that could treat a traumatic brain injury at the site. It may seem like science fiction, or at least a dream of a very distant future – but as John Rogers of Northwestern University explained to the UH community last week, these are both current examples of biocompatible devices that can integrate with the human body.

Approximately 120 Houston high school students blasted onto the UH campus to launch into engineering! The 5th annual “Launch into Engineering” is a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) outreach event to attract college-bound students to the STEM fields.