BMES Key Takeaways

Last month I attended the Biomedical Engineering Society’s (BMES) Annual Meeting. This 5-day conference brought together over 5,000 biomedical engineers from around the globe.  With over 2,300 scientific poster presentations, 974 platform sessions, and nearly 150 exhibitors, I found myself at the epicenter of healthcare innovation!   

The Baltimore Convention Center was buzzing with the world’s leading-edge researchers, faculty, students and industry professionals all passionate about one thing: pioneering and advancing the future of human health and wellness.   

As a Life Design Educator for the Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering students at John’s Hopkins University, my goal was to make connections, explore career insights and pathways, as well as build a mental roadmap of trends and opportunities in this ever-changing landscape of medical innovation.  I walked away with so much more. 

  

What is the future of medicine?  

Imagine a world where organs and tissue can be sourced as easily as pressing print. Where with a little reprogramming, the genetic cards you were dealt no longer determine your cellular fate. Where nano scale space missions deliver therapies deep within our DNA.  When Artificial Intelligence (AI) is able to comb through massive amounts of data not possible in a human lifetime, lifting out patterns to solve the world’s greatest health problems. Imagine if we could build digital avatar twins of our brains engineered to crack the code on Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Consider the implications of moving upstream from (and eliminating) diseases like cancer, by engineering the perfect immune system. And consider how your health might change, if your medical treatment was precisely tailored to your exact DNA.   

This may sound like something out of a sci-fi novel, but truly this is where we are.  In fact, these were some of the Grand Challenges at the Interface of Engineering and Medicine presented during a mind-bending plenary and multi-tiered expert panel led by our very own Dr. Michael Miller, PhD, Bessie Darling Massey and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Shankar Subramaniam, Joan and Irwin Jacobs Endowed Chair in Bioengineering and Systems Biology, University of California San Diego.   

Clearly, we are amidst a paradigm shift in human health and medicine.  As Dr. Miller said in his closing remarks, “By defining the grand challenges in BME we are defining for the curriculum we need”.     

How do we move forward ethically?   

What a time to innovate! With access to this level of technology, tools, information, it’s no surprise that ethics were top of mind in many conversations and presentations across the event.  I was literally handed a “moral compass” at the BMES exhibit hall booth.  From sessions on complying with the BMES Code of Ethics  when using social media as a young BME professional, to talks of the implications, dangers and opportunities of using AI, there was an undercurrent of the heavy responsibility of being ethical ambassadors within with innovative field.   

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) was a hot topic at BMES.  How do we engineer for all?  And how do we bring more brilliant minds and voices from different backgrounds and perspectives to the table in solving the worlds greatest health challenges?   This was a grand challenge of it’s own. I was especially struck by these examples on building a more inclusive ecosystem of Biomedical Engineering:  

• “Which part are you going to play?”  This was the question posed by Janine Austin Clayton, M.D., FARVO, NIH Associate Director for Research on Women’s Health.  In a compelling plenary about Women’s Health Innovation, Dr. Clayton shared the history of gender disparities in research (in that only since 1993 has it been mandated that women be included in research), the inclusion of the complexities and differences in women’s health to truly create evidence based care (for example women have higher pain sensitivity)  the newest policies in addressing gender equity (for example, Menopause becoming an official research and disease category last year), and the wealth of tools, resources and funding around women’s health research (like the DiscoverWHR, a centralized resource for women’s health research and information from NIH). Dr. Clayton made it clear that to truly innovate for tomorrow’s population, we must be intentionally inclusive in our research methods.  
• The barriers to this field can start young.  Access, opportunity and affordability have historically limited diversity and inclusion in biomedical engineering.  It is our responsibility as Educators to be diversity forward and build intentional pathways.  One of the greatest examples of this I saw at the conference was session about the Power of Education and Innovation by our very own Jess Dunleavy, PHD, Senior Lecturer and Associate Director of Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Dunleavy along with co-authors Michelle Zwernemann, MSE and Kwame Kutten, PHD shared assessments and preliminary impact data on our Immersive Summer Program for Education, Enrichment and Distinction (ISPEED), an early access, completely free (including travel, room/board, stipend and tuition and fees) summer residential summer program for 15–17-year-old high school students.  The students not only built real world skills and experience to be competitive applicants to BME undergraduate programs, but also reported they developed a newfound sense of belonging and confidence to join this community.  Since 2017, JHU has doubled their diversity numbers by innovative programs like these.

 What skills are most important for the future of medicine?  

Given the complexities, ethical implications and innovation challenges on the horizon of biomedical engineering, what skills do our future engineers need to be successful?  This was the question I was keen to understand.   

“Cooperation is the most important ingredient. Collaboration with those different from us.  And Critical Thinking.”  These were the words of Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Columbia University Professor and world-renowned stem cell and tissue engineer.  

In fact, these thoughts were backed up by data, shared by Jenny Amos, Teaching Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in a compelling session focused on Industry Readiness skills as identified at the 2024 BMES Summit. Dr. Amos compiled and shared the results of Biotech employer surveys, mock resume review studies, entry level BME job postings, and Occupational Information Network (O-net).   

Here’s what rose to the top:   creativity, communication, initiative and responsibility, problem identification and problem solving, teamwork, cross functionality, empathy and confidence.  

According to Dr. Amos’s data, not only are these the most important skills to get you in the door, but they are also the hardest skills to train on the job. Obviously, these skills alone would not make a candidate biomedical industry ready.  Further down the list you will find the most important technical skills being research skills, quality knowledge, and design + development.   

In addition, the research showed that the most competitive candidates should aim for diverse experience (different aspects of BME, a balance between independent and collaborative work, experience with different companies within industry, academia or labs), and be able to articulate (on their resume and in interviews their individual contribution or role (including any publications or next steps in a study design) as well as quantitative metrics or impact.  

How does Life Design support this vision?  

Life Design is the process of applying #Design Thinking methodology to solving the grand challenge of life.  How do we spend this precious time we have? What matters? What impact do we want to see in the world? How do we create a balanced, authentic and aligned life?  This is the grand challenge in Life Design Lab.  

We see life as a design challenge. Much like the engineering design process we follow a cycle of curiosity and research, imagining possibilities, prototyping and testing our interests, and iterating and improving our solutions.  We understand that the best answers are not found in a bubble. They come from co-creation, collaboration, talking to people, moving beyond our single limited perspective, building relationships, trying things, embracing failure as our greatest teacher, getting comfortable with ambiguity, and building our skills in storytelling and communication.  

How do we do this?   

Much like the greatest researchers, we start with #Curiosity.  To navigate this world of possibilities in life we must develop a strong compass of our values, interests, and strengths.  Next we #Imagine.  Just like the pioneers of medicine, we imagine the possibilities. We ask a lot of questions of ourselves and others.  There are no wrong answers, only possibilities.  We are generative and bold with our dreams. Then we move from idea to action by prototyping ways to “Experience More” of these possibilities, testing them like prototypes. Maybe that’s a curiosity chat with an industry professional, or perhaps it’s taking an explore tour to visit a research lab or industry employer, or an internship or research lab experience. As we try things, we are collecting data about ourselves, about the world, and coming into more clarity and confidence.  We access, we pivot, we learn and we move forward.  It can feel messy and confusing at times, but we become comfortable with ambiguity, more resourceful, more experienced and more confident.  We start to understand that we can’t design a truly robust life in isolation.  We take responsibility and develop motivation and agency. We go out there, try things, talk to people, embrace failure, co-create, collaborate and move past our limited single perspectives.  The more we do, the more we develop our unique voice so we might “Tell our Story (whether on a resume, in an interview or in our interactions with others). We communicate in a more authentic, compassionate and confident way.  We approach the world with empathy, possibility and a collaborative spirit.  And in doing this we start to understand who we truly are, what matters, and just how connected we are.  We start to understand that it’s about the journey not the destination.   

Like solving the world’s grandest health challenges, the work of designing you life is never done.  We are pioneers.  We are creative problem solvers, curious innovators and skilled communicators who appreciate, include and consider all perspectives.  And THIS, is exactly what is necessary for the future of medicine.

Check out some of our Hopkins students who presented their research at BMES!