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National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., has selected Bruce J. Tromberg, Ph.D., to lead the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). A pioneering leader in the field of biophotonics, Dr. Tromberg is currently a professor at the University of California at Irvine (UCI). He is expected to join NIH in the new year.

Projects focused on providing simple, low-cost modifications to surgical techniques that could reduce pain or damage from these procedures dominated this year’s Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at NIH will convene science and medical experts from academia, industry, and government at a workshop on Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging.

Scientists at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have combined two different microscope technologies to create sharper images of rapidly moving processes inside a cell.

Researchers are now able to use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) to form a model of human adult-like cardiac muscle by introducing electric and mechanical stimulation at an early stage. Since this muscle is similar to the adult heart, it could serve as a better model for testing the effects of drugs and toxic substances than current tissue-engineered heart models.

Hari Shroff, Ph.D., chief of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering’s lab section on High Resolution Optical Imaging (HROI), and his team have spent the last few years developing optical microscopes that produce high resolution images at very high speed. After his lab develops these new microscopes, they release the plans and software for free, so any researcher can replicate the advances made at NIH. This latest microscope builds on previous improvements that Shroff’s lab had made with selective plane illumination microscopy (SPIM).

Tools to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and latent tuberculosis are among the winning projects in the Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge, a biomedical engineering design prize competition for teams of undergraduate students. The teams developed prototypes of devices that advance technology and improve human health. The DEBUT challenge, with prizes worth $65,000, is supported by a public-private partnership between the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health, and VentureWell, a non-profit higher-education network that cultivates revolutionary ideas and promising inventions.

Researchers funded by NIH have developed an imaging method that reveals a much more diverse and flexible DNA-protein chromatin chain than previously thought. The result suggests a nimbler structure to regulate gene expression, and provide a mechanism for chemical modifications of DNA to be maintained as cells divide.

NIH-funded scientists at the University of Florida have discovered a new method of observing the brain changes caused by Parkinson’s disease, which destroys neurons important for movement. The development suggests that fluid changes in a specific brain area could provide a way to track that damage.