Learn about how membrane receptors work in our body. Created by William Tsai.

Students apply the knowledge gained from the previous lessons and activities in this unit to write draft grant proposals to the U.S. National Institutes of Health outlining their ideas for proposed research using nanoparticles to protect against, detect or treat skin cancer. Through this exercise, students demonstrate their understanding of the environmental factors that contribute to skin cancer, the science and mathematics of UV radiation, the anatomy of human skin, current medical technology applications of nanotechnology and the societal importance of funding research in this area, as well as their communication skills in presenting plans for specific nanoscale research they would conduct using nanoparticles.

Students learn about the biomedical use of nanoparticles in the detection and treatment of cancer, including the use of quantum dots and lasers that heat-activate nanoparticles. They also learn about electrophoresis a laboratory procedure that uses an electric field to move tiny particles through a channel in order to separate them by size. They complete an online virtual mini-lab, with accompanying worksheet, to better understand gel electrophoresis. This prepares them for the associated activity to write draft research proposals to use nanoparticles to protect against, detect or treat skin cancer.

Career videos show the types of work in which individuals employed in a career field, cluster or pathway are engaged. Nebraska Career Education, in cooperation with the Nebraska Departments of Labor and Economic Development, offers an array of virtual career tours of Nebraska-based businesses and industries. Discussion guides for the teacher and viewing guides for students have been developed for each career tour. These virtual industry tours provide a unique opportunity to get a glimpse inside Nebraska-based industries without leaving the classroom. Interviews, tours of the business environment and “pop-up” information and statistics on job markets, salaries, and educational requirements are part of each career cluster’s videos.

Through this unit, students act as engineers who are given the challenge to design laparoscopic surgical tools. After learning about human anatomy and physiology of the abdominopelvic cavity, especially as it applies to laparoscopic surgery, students learn about the mechanics of elastic solids, which is the most basic level of material behavior. Then, they explore the world of fluids and learn how fluids react to forces. Next, they combine their understanding of the mechanics of solids and fluids to understand viscoelastic materials, such as those found in the human body. Finally, they learn about tissue mechanics, including how collagen, elastin and proteoglycans give body tissues their unique characteristics. In the culminating hands-on activity, student teams design their own prototypes of laparoscopic surgical robots remotely controlled, camera-toting devices that must fit through small incisions, inspect organs and tissue for disease, obtain biopsies, and monitor via ongoing wireless image-taking. They use a (homemade) synthetic abdominal cavity simulator to test and iterate the prototype devices.

In this activity students analyze a family’s pedigrees to make a claim based on evidence about mode of inheritance of a lactose intolerance trait, determine the most likely inheritance pattern of a trait, and analyze variations in DNA to make a claim about which variants are associated with specific traits. This activity serves as a supplement to the film Got Lactose? The Co-evolution of Genes and Culture (http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/making-fittest-got-lactase-co-evolution-genes-and-culture). The film shows a scientist as he tracks down the genetic changes associated with the ability to digest lactose as adults. A detailed teacher’s guide that includes curriculum connections, teaching tips, time requirements, answer key and a student guide can be downloaded at http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/pedigrees-and-inheritance-lactose-intolerance. Six supporting resource and two “click and learn” activities are also found on the link.

Students are introduced to prosthetics history, purpose and benefits, main components, main types, materials, control methods, modern examples including modern materials used to make replacement body parts and the engineering design considerations to develop prostheses. They learn how engineers and medical doctors work together to improve the lives of people with amputations and the challenges faced when designing new prostheses with functional and cosmetic criteria and constraints. A PowerPoint(TM) presentation and two worksheets are provided.

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process while learning more about assistive devices and biomedical engineering applied to basic structural engineering concepts. Their engineering challenge is to design, build and test small-scale portable wheelchair ramp prototypes for fictional clients. They identify suitable materials and demonstrate two methods of representing design solutions (scale drawings and simple models or classroom prototypes). Students test the ramp prototypes using a weighted bucket; successful prototypes meet all the student-generated design requirements, including support of a predetermined weight.

This lesson culminates the unit with the Go Public phase of the legacy cycle. In the associated activity, students depict a tumor amidst healthy body tissue using a Microsoft Excel® graph. In addition, students design a brochure for both patients and doctors advertising a new form of painless yet reliable breast cancer detection. Together, the in-class activity and the take-home assignment function as an assessment of what students have learned throughout the unit.

Student teams investigate biomedical engineering and the technology of prosthetics. Students create a model prosthetic lower leg using various materials. Each team demonstrate its prosthesis' strength and consider its pros and cons, giving insight into the characteristics and materials biomedical engineers consider in designing artificial limbs.

Students design and build prototypes for protective eyewear. They choose different activities or sports that require protective eyewear and design a device for that particular use. Students learn about the many ways in which the eyes can be damaged and how engineers incorporate different features and materials into eyewear designs to best protect the eyes.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Artificial intelligence is making rapid advances in medicine. Already, there are machine learning algorithms that can outperform doctors in some medical fields. There’s only one fairly big problem: experts aren’t quite sure how these algorithms work. While designers know full well what goes into the A-I systems they build and what comes out, the learning part in between is often too complex to comprehend. To their users, machine learning algorithms are effectively black boxes. Now, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan are lifting the lid. They’ve developed a deep-learning system that can outperform human experts in predicting whether prostate cancer will reoccur within one year. More importantly, the deep learning system they developed can acquire human-understandable features from unannotated pathology images to offer up critical clues that could help humans make better diagnoses themselves..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Students learn about how biomedical engineers aid doctors in repairing severely broken bones. They learn about using pins, plates, rods and screws to repair fractures. They do this by designing, creating and testing their own prototype devices to repair broken turkey bones.

What makes two organisms members of different species? Learn about the forces behind reproductive isolation. By Ross Firestone.

Students use their knowledge about how healthy heart valves function to design, construct and implant prototype replacement mitral valves for hypothetical patients' hearts. Building on what they learned in the associated lesson about artificial heart valves, combined with the testing and scoring of their prototype heart valve designs in this activity, students discover the pros and cons of different types of artificial heart valves based on materials, surgery requirements, and lifespan.

Students participate in a variety of activities modeling different disabilities. They gain a better understanding of physical limitations while performing tasks at workstations without the use of their thumbs (taped down), impaired vision (various glasses) and impaired mobility (using crutches and wheelchairs). After discussing their experiences, they work in teams to create or improve on an adaptive device. Like biomedical engineers, students are challenged to design with the purpose of helping make a particular task easier for another person.