Research & Development Team:
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Your challenge this season is to explore the cutting-edge world of Biomedical Engineering to discover innovative ways to repair injuries; overcome illnesses and disabilities; and build healthier, stronger bodies.
Once you know how scientists, engineers, and doctors work together to find solutions, do some research.
What kinds of problems keep people from leading happy and healthy lives? How could your team help solve one of those problems?
Identify a Problem
Begin your project by creating a list of your body parts, functions, or systems. Think about the things that could go wrong with each one, and ways to protect, repair, or make them stronger. Be creative. Be silly. Be serious. Think about everything that makes you&emdash;YOU!
Once your list is complete, pick one body part, function (like hearing or breathing), or system (like circulation with the heart, veins, arteries, capillaries, and blood all working together) and learn more about it!
Whether your team chooses an arm, ear, leg, brain, nerve, heart, gene, tooth, lung, DNA strand, skin cell, eye, muscle, nose, bone, stomach, your hands or feet, or a group of parts that work togetherÉit's time to research.
How does your body part, function or system work with other body parts, functions, or systems to keep you healthy? What dangers does it face? What kinds of scientists, doctors, and engineers are studying that part, function, or system? Find out about one of the people who is working to make your team's body part, function, or system stronger and healthier, to fix it when it's injured, or to heal it when it's sick.
Search out the problems and choose one to solve. Look at reports. Read books and magazines. Browse Web sites.
Conduct a survey. Check with experts who work in and around your community. Use any research tools you have available. Be prepared to share your information sources.
Create an Inovative Solution
Choose one of the problems associated with the body part, function or system your team has chosen to research and suggest a solution&emdash;a new idea or an improvement on something already being done. What is being done to fix the problem? What could be done? What will it take to make your team's solution happen? How will your solution help people live happier and healthier lives?
A great solution might take all the imagination and ingenuity your team can muster. It might seem so obvious that you wonder why the problem even exists. Decide where your solution fits:
- Body - Repaired
- Body - Healed
- Body - Improved
And remember, the most important thing is to have fun.
Biomedical engineering is expected to be the fastest growing occupation, with a whopping growth project of 72% between 2008 and 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's not much of a surprise, given that this field lies at the nexus of technology and health care, two ballooning industries within the U.S. economy.
The immense growth of biomedical engineering will be driven by the demand for new treatments for diseases and the increasingly higher expectations of aging patients to maintain an active lifestyle. Indeed, the pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing industry experienced 11.1% sales growth in the past year, according to Sageworks.
From developing artificial organs, medical devices like pace makers, or refining imaging technology that allows doctors to examine patients in more precise ways than ever before, biomedical engineers will have plenty to work on in the coming decade.