Hello everyone! It has been another great school year with a lot of great activities and things to learn. We have had great lectures ranging from tissue engineering to advice for graduate school. Every month it gets better and better. We wish to offer our congratulations to our president John Hickey who is graduating. He has done a wonderful job in the organization to help bring everyone closer together. Likewise we would like to offer a welcome to the new president Sara Ehlert who has been working as the vice president, and Nelson Warner who has recently been appointed vice president. There have been other additional changes in leadership and we should be announcing those soon, and updating the webpage's leadership page. If you are interested in helping us by becoming involved with leadership please contact us.

      Two weeks ago we had a great lecture from Dr. Alonzo Cook. It was a great opportunity to listen to someone who has had a lot of experience on both the academic and the commercial side of the biomedical field.

     He explained the successes that he has been able to see in his 17 years working in the industry, and how those have built up to our current advancements. Mainly focusing on his work with tissue engineering. He has helped the medical industry get much closer to being able to grow transplant organs. One interesting story that he told was about the mouse heard round the world:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1949073.stm

The mouse pictured above was in 2002 and we have been able to have great progress since then. We may be able to grow human organs that have been damaged or need to be replaced. We should be able to use 3D printers filled with cells to be able to create organs: (http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html?embed=true). 

We are already able to do a great amount in the field of tissue engineering and the future looks very promising.

Here are some pictures of the lecture:

     This was the last activity for the academic year and so we'll have to see all of you again next fall. We will have a biomedical conference with a great keynote speaker and wonderful presentations. We will be ironing out the details over the summer and so we will be getting back to you. If you have any questions or suggestions for the next year feel free to contact us.

Thank you so much for your wonderful help and support.

     -BYU Biomedical Engineering Club Leadership