Welcome from Chair Sharon Gerecht

Sharon Gerecht, an internationally recognized pioneer in stem cell and vascular biology, is the Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor and chair of Biomedical Engineering at Duke.

Sharon Gerecht in front of window overlooking Duke Chapel

Welcome to Duke BME!

Duke’s Department of Biomedical Engineering is one of the oldest of its kind and consistently ranks among the very top undergraduate and graduate programs in the field.

When our program began more than 50 years ago, Duke BME faculty were recognized as pioneers in research, including cardiac electrophysiology, medical ultrasound, and biomaterials.

Today, our community works at the forefront of new and emerging areas, including neural engineering, synthetic biology, genomic engineering, cellular biomechanics, biomaterials and tissue engineering, and computational biology.

This impressive work is not accomplished in isolation, and our proximity to Duke’s School of Medicine and Duke University Hospital––among the best medical schools and hospitals in the country––prestigious peer institutions, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and N.C. State University and Research Triangle Park facilitate successful collaborations.

These efforts are supported through our partnerships with major research centers at Duke, such as the Center for Advanced Genomic Technologies, the Center for Biomolecular & Tissue Engineering, the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, the Center for Quantitative Biodesign and the Center for Computational & Digital Health Innovation.

Duke BME’s always-expanding design curriculum allows students to gain hands-on, practical experience in the classroom, lab or clinic.

Programs such as First-Year Design allow our newest undergraduate engineering students to hit the ground running during their first semesters, while multi-semester experiences like Design Health and the BME Design Fellows enable our students to collaborate with clinicians to create useful and needed medical devices.

Prestigious and competitive grants, such as the R25 Grant from the National Institute of Health’s Research Education Program, enable our faculty to expand wet-lab courses continually. This ensures our students learn to use and integrate the latest biotechnology tools into clinical and commercial environments.

Our team of dedicated faculty, staff and students have been key to our department’s ever-growing impact and longevity. I hope you enjoy perusing our website as you learn more about Duke BME’s trailblazing work.

Sharon Gerecht
Chair of Biomedical Engineering
Paul M. Gross Distinguished Professor

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