Bioengineers Soon To Have Headquarters In Washington, D.C.

Bioengineers Soon To Have Headquarters In Washington, D.C. Author: Karen Young Kreeger, pp.3 The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE)--an organization representing nearly 15,000 United States engineers, physicians, and scientists-- has received a grant enabling it to set up permanent headquarters in Washington, D.C. Thanks to the funding infusion, institute officials say, biomedical engineering researchers will for the first time have a geographical, as well as a scientific, base upon which to build greater recognition for their shared research interests. Principal financing for the new office has come in the form of a five-year, $625,000 grant from the Whitaker Foundation- -a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group that traditionally has supported research, training, and conferences in biomedical engineering, chiefly through grants to scientists, institutions, and professional societies (N. Sankaran, The Scientist, Feb. 21, 1994, page 3). The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) was formed in 1991 with the aim of unifying the biological and engineering communities in the United States and promoting higher visibility for the interests, efforts, and achievements of its eclectic members. The organization comprises nearly 60 institutional members-- a mix of professional societies and academic institutions that represent nearly 15,000 engineers, physicians, and scientists. Among its 12 constituent societies are the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Its 47 academic members include such major research institutions as Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and the University of California, San Diego. Robert M. Nerem, founding president of AIMBE and a professor of medical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, says that, while the organization has not yet developed industrial memberships, AIMBE does have "extensive interaction" with industry representatives. A "college" of more than 300 fellows and a 13-member board of directors supervise the affairs of the institute. New fellows are nominated--based on their contribution to the field of biomedical engineering--by current fellows. The board is selected at the yearly meeting of fellows held every March at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. For more information, contact Pierre M. Galletti, AIMBE president, at the Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Box GB 393, Providence, R.I. 02912; (401) 863- 3547. Fax: (401) 863-1753. --K.Y.K. In the three years since its formation in 1991, AIMBE's base of operations has been located at the home institution of whoever was the president at the time. Institute organizers have not yet chosen a definite site for their new office, but say they plan to rent space in the U.S. capital to accommodate an executive director and a small staff. Still in the midst of a nationwide search for an executive director, officials expect to fill the position by mid-fall and formally open their new quarters in December. The bulk of the organization's anticipated annual $250,000 budget, they add, will go primarily to cover staff and administrative costs. Robert M. Nerem, founding president of AIMBE, says the bioengineering community has long been too fragmented, partly because the field encompasses such diverse disciplines as molecular biology and chemical engineering and is represented by many life science and engineering professional societies (M.E. Watanabe, The Scientist, Nov. 29, 1993, page 1). From the new office, Nerem and other AIMBE leaders say, they intend to present a unified front in support of their field in interactions with federal agencies and Congress. Peter Katona, vice president for biomedical engineering programs at Whitaker, says the foundation contributed the grant for the new headquarters because "we felt it was terribly important for the field of biomedical engineering to have some center of activity that does not move." Without a common voice and fixed location, says Nerem, biomedical engineers have not been adequately represented as a group in the dialogue that takes place in Washington relative to biomedical public policy. "It's not that the bioengineering community thinks it should be dictating public policy," says Nerem, who holds the Parker H. Petit Distinguished Chair for Engineering in Medicine at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, "but it does think that it ought to be at the table when these things are discussed." Organizers say that AIMBE plans to step up its activities, including promoting greater involvement by biomedical engineers in health-care and biotechnology policy-making; helping to maintain the healthy job climate they say biomedical engineers currently enjoy in the U.S.; and promoting interdisciplinary biomedical-engineering education programs at the nation's universities. Some researchers, however, caution that finding a common ground in this complex field is the first hurdle the staff of the new headquarters will have to overcome. Janie M. Fouke, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleve- land, for example, says that because biomedical engineering is so multidisciplinary, the tasks ahead will be challenging with regard to the society's "reasonably representing such a diverse group." AIMBE's Aims Having the opportunity to cultivate a higher profile with the many agencies and organizations located in Washington is the main reason that AIMBE chose to create a permanent headquarters in the U.S. capital, say the institute's leaders. Pierre Galletti, AIMBE president and a professor of medical sciences at Brown University Medical School in Providence, R.I., says the organization hopes to achieve greater recognition for bioengineering within agencies such as the National Institutes of Health. He points out that among the nearly 4,000 intramural scientists at NIH, fewer than 70 are biomedical engineers. "That's ridiculously low for the kind of contribution engineering is expected to give medical science, as well as medical practice," he says. "Because our field has fallen between the cracks, it does not fit within any one institute." Galletti says that one way this underrecognition could be rectified is by greater representation of biomedical engineers on NIH study sections and advisory councils. In addition to activities in government and industry, the institute plans to become more involved in training future generations of biomedical engineers. AIMBE leaders say there needs to be greater communication between the physical and biological sciences communities at both engineering and medical schools. "The mindset of many engineering educators, historically, has been that physics and chemistry are the important sciences to engineering. Our view is that that was true, but biology has now emerged as a science equal to chemistry and physics in importance to engineering," says Nerem. Still others say the AIMBE office could be a focus for better communication among the many U.S. professional societies involved in biomedical engineering. Fouke says these groups have common goals that they "perhaps haven't recognized." For example, she says, there is a "labyrinth of governmental rules, guidelines, and procedures for the development of medical devices that one must go through in order to get a device from the research lab into clinical practice." Many AIMBE constituent societies encounter this same maze, she says, suggesting that the office could act as a clearinghouse on technology transfer.

Bioengineers Soon To Have Headquarters In Washington, D.C.

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