Our History
In 2024, we’re celebrating 100 years of excellence in engineering at Duke
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Technological advances, pioneering vision and federal funding combine to yield the birth of a new discipline—biomedical engineering.
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Duke BME’s establishes its expertise in imaging technologies and biomechanics.
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Duke BME expands it expertise to continue to push the field forward.
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From new advances in biomedical imaging to the publication of field-expanding studies, Duke BME’s influence continues to grow.
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Duke BME delivers their work to both the local and global community as they address pressing medical problems.
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Founding
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1967
Undergraduate Program Created
Spurred by NIH funding, a general environment favoring growth, and the long history of collaboration between Duke’s medical and engineering faculties, an undergraduate BME program is created at Duke, headed by Theo C. Pilkington.
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1969
PhD Program Launched
Duke’s trustees approve a doctoral program in biomedical engineering.
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1971
Department Formed
Duke’s Division of Biomedical Engineering is promoted to an academic department. There are five founding faculty members and five PhD students.
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1972
First Accredited Major in the U.S.
ABET accredits the first BME major in the United States—at Duke. Founding enrollment is 16 undergraduates.
Expertise in Medicial Imaging
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1976
Phased-Array Imaging
Frederick “Fritz” Thurstone and graduate student Olaf von Ramm lay the foundation for the phased-array imaging system that revolutionizes cardiac imaging, paving the way for real-time ultrasound imaging in clinical practice.
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1978
Biomechanics
Faculty expertise in biomechanics expands with the arrival of James McElhaney, a leading authority on head and spine injuries, and Evans and Hochmuth, pioneers in the new field of cellular biomechanics.
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1987
Nation’s first Engineering Research Center in Biomedical Engineering
Research activity is greatly strengthened when Duke is awarded leadership of Emerging Cardiovascular Technologies, the nation’s first ERC in biomedical engineering. The center focuses on improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary heart disease. Achievements include new anti-arrhythmic devices, three-dimensional ultrasound, very-high resolution magnetic resonance microscopes and low-cost chemical biosensors.
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1987
4-D Ultrasound
Olaf von Ramm and Stephen Smith (BME) invent the first real-time 3-D ultrasonic scanner (4-D), which comes to be used worldwide in multiple specialties.
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1987
Faculty Entrepreneurship
BME researchers form three companies in a single year: 3D Ultrasound Inc.(later called Volumetrics) to commercialize 3D ultrasound technology, MITI to develop high-temperature superconducting probe MRI, and InControl to produce implantable defibrillators.
New Areas of High-Impact Research
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1987
Electrophysiology
Robert Plonsey, a leading expert in electrophysiology and a national leader in the development of the BME profession, joins the faculty. He later becomes the first Duke BME faculty member elected to the prestigious National Academy of Engineering.
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1990
Advances in Heart Defibrillation
Ray Ideker with Patrick Wolf and William Smith optimize biphasic waveforms for defibrillation of the heart.
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1993
Biosurface and Biophotonic Engineering
The Center for Cellular and Biosurface Engineering is founded by George Truskey and Robert Reichert. A Whitaker Foundation award fuels expansion into biophotonics, and Adam Wax and Tuan Vo-Dinh join the faculty.
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1998
First Female Tenured Faculty
Biomedical engineer Wanda Krassowska Neu is the first female faculty member to receive tenure in Duke’s School of Engineering. Her work focuses on electroporation-mediated drug and gene delivery and a nonlinear dynamics approach to cardiac arrhythmias.
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1999
Bioengineered Blood Vessels
Duke anesthesiologist and biomedical engineer Laura Niklason creates a novel “bioreactor” system and uses it to grow blood vessels that look and act like the real thing. The discovery ultimately leads to the first U.S. implantation of a bioengineered blood vessel, performed at Duke University Medical Center in 2013.
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1999
First Elastin-Like Polypeptide Fusion
Ashutosh Chilkoti develops the first elastin-like polypeptide fusion that provides a new method to purify proteins without chromatography—opening a new path to developing drugs with greater potency and fewer side effects.
Game-Changing Resources Come Online
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2000
Faculty Expansion
With the arrival of Dean Kristina Johnson comes a new commitment to expand the engineering school. Eight are added to Duke BME to grow its tenure-track faculty to 24.
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2001
Stem Cell Advances
Farshid Guilak develops new methods to isolate stem cells from human fat and use them to regenerate articular cartilage and other musculoskeletal tissues.
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2002
Ultrasound Diagnosis Without Incision
Gregg Trahey and Kathryn Nightingale demonstrate a device that uses ultrasound to image and measure stiffness of breast tissue and, eventually, other tissues. The advance allows clinicians to detect and diagnose ailments such as liver scarring and prostate cancer without having to make an incision.
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2003
Optical Coherence Tomography
Joseph Izatt’s BME research group demonstrates a more than 100-fold improvement in the sensitivity of OCT.
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2004
A Vast, New Home for Duke BME
The immense Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine & Applied Sciences opens, doubling the space available for wet labs and the new Fitzpatrick Center for Photonics.
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2004
Neuroengineering
The Center for Neuroengineering is established by Duke BME neuroengineer Greg Henriquez and Duke medical researcher Miguel Nicolelis.
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2005
Translational Partnership & Funding
The Duke-Coulter Translational Partnership is founded with an investment from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to develop commercially promising technologies that improve patient care.
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2008
Synthetic Biology
Lingchong You and colleagues engineer a synthetic predator-prey ecosystem using gene circuits—one of the most influential studies in the new field of synthetic biology.
Making Impacts Globally
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2012
Slowing Mother-to-Baby HIV Transmission
Students working with Bob Malkin invent the Pratt Pouch, a drug delivery system no bigger than a ketchup packet, that helps clinicians and mothers in developing regions prevent HIV transmission to babies.
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2012
Low-Cost Cervical Cancer Screening
Nimmi Ramanujam and team in the Center for Global Women’s Health Technologies develop a low-cost, portable cervical cancer screening device. The Pocket Colposcope is tested on four continents, cleared by the FDA and moves toward commercialization.
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2014
Self-Healing Lab-Grown Muscle
Nenad Bursac creates the first lab-grown muscle that can heal itself after implantation into a living animal. The advance is an important step toward growing viable muscle for studying diseases and treating injuries.
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2016
CRISPR to Treat Genetic Disorders
Charles Gersbach is the first to use CRISPR to successfully treat a genetic disorder—Duchenne muscular dystrophy—in a fully developed living animal. The strategy shows potential to be translated to human therapy.
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2020
Medical Devices to Fight COVID
As part of Duke’s all-hands response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the MEDx partnership between Duke’s schools of engineering and medicine supports clinicians with innovations to overcome shortages. Projects include retrofit kits to increase the number of powered air respirators and a device to safely transport infected patients through hospitals.
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2020
Wilkinson Building Opens
The innovative 81,000-square-foot building opens with an intentionally designed research neighborhood dedicated to improving human health. COVID restrictions delay the start of classes until January 2021.
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2023
Outreach Design Education
ODE at Duke begins under the leadership of biomedical engineer Aaron Kyle. Through thoughtful engagements, including a Design Hackathon, Summer Design Camp for highschoolers and a professional development for K-12 teachers, ODE enhances community access to STEM resources, fosters inclusivity and builds strong local partnerships.