I welcome you to the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Houston, established in 2010. We are dedicated to build one of the most respected Biomedical Engineering programs at the University of Houston, in Texas, in the U.S. and in the world.

We will build an innovative entrepreneurship environment and healthcare focused academic curriculum to meet the demands and requirements of the ever-changing global economy that influences health care technology, management and delivery.

Our main goal is to develop leadership in academia, government, and industry nationally and globally. The importance of global scientific, social, and cultural interaction and the demands of the dynamic, ever-changing global healthcare economy have been strongly emphasized in our undergraduate and graduate programs

To achieve these goals, we are developing new three emerging academic and research fields including:

1. Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering
   We focus on neural implants, neurogenesis, neurochips, cognitive engineering, neural signal and image processing and modeling, and brain computer interface from hardware to experimentation.
2. Biomedical Imaging
   We focus on in vivo molecular and cellular imaging research with strong emphasis on the imaging of cancer biomarkers, therapy assessment, and cancer biology models etc. We also focus on clinical cardiovascular and brain imaging and develop an advanced interdisciplinary research field based on human cardiovascular and brain imaging.
3. Genomics, Proteomics and Bionano Engineering and Science
   We focus on gene regulatory networks, genetics of systems biology, computational biology, and infectious diseases. We also focus on innovative drug discovery and design, translational research and personalized medicine, as well as the recent advances in bionano science and engineering.

The new undergraduate and graduate programs furthermore promote and expand close collaborations between medical centers and institutions. I believe that our unique program as briefly described above bring new ideas and additional dynamics to the existing biomedical industry in Texas.  It will promote the biomedical and the biotechnology industry to grow in Houston, Texas and the US.

Our plans also include significantly increasing efforts to hire women and under-represented minority faculty and working with our clinical partners to build a joint PhD/MD Program to recruit the best and brightest students.

If you are interested in being a part of the Department of Biomedical Engineering as a faculty member, undergraduate or graduate student, I would love to hear from you.

Best,

Metin Akay, Ph.D.
Founding Chair, John S Dunn Endowed Chair Professor
Department of Biomedical Engineering