College of Engineering

NASA has named U-M sole recipient of the new NASA BioScience and Engineering Institute (NBEI) to “develop a new generation of space bioengineers” identifying the technologies of the future.

The $6.4 million, interdisciplinary award spans a five-year period and may be extended for another five years. Jim Grotberg, professor of biomedical engineering, is principal investigator.

DeVon Griffin, technical monitor of NBEI, says that in the past, NASA has awarded research grants “mainly aimed at generating scholarly knowledge. With NASA’s increased emphasis on exploration, we are changing our expectations. I expect the NBEI to produce prototype devices based on microfluidic and microelectronics technologies that NASA will use to monitor human health during space exploration. I also expect that the NBEI will generate new understanding of the deleterious effects of spaceflight on the human body and that the NBEI will also develop technologies to counteract those effects.”

Institute faculty will conduct research in four theme areas:

• Tissue bioscience and engineering: Projects will explore the impacts of weightlessness on astronauts’ bone and muscle, two areas in which astronaut physiology is significantly challenged. Researchers hope to deliver locally a hormone to counter the loss of bone in space, and will examine the influence of physical forces on bone structure. Another project will examine how hind limb “unweighting” affects muscle function;

• Transport phenomena in biology and devices: Scientists in the transport phenomena research component will study how the brain and lungs of astronauts function in space. One project will simulate neural and neurovascular changes to examine the effects of blood flow inside and outside the brain.

Liquid ventilation—”breathable fluids”—will provide an Earth-based model to determine the effects of zero gravity on astronaut lung function. Also, DNA “lab on a chip” devices—pioneered at U-M in the late 1990s—are helping to analyze molecular and cellular substances in saliva for health monitoring of astronauts;

• Molecular biophysics and bioengineering: Monitoring the outcomes of specific biochemical reactions will help NASA in its search for the possibility of life on other planets. Molecular nanosystems will monitor astronaut radiation exposure using noninvasive optical probes through the eye;

• BioMEMS and biomaterials: The bioMEMS and biomaterials theme will focus on the design and evaluation of a novel type of minimally invasive medical device for integrated physiological and environmental sensing. The long-term goal is to develop a “skin-patch” type of polymer integrated microsystem that has an interface to the body for physiological sensing (e.g. biopotentials) and an interface to the external environment for environmental monitoring (e.g. air quality).

In addition to Biomedical Engineering, U-M research units included are Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, the Medical School, the Dental School, Public Health, Physics, Chemistry, and Kinesiology. The institute also will include a curriculum component. Some projects already are underway.

U-M competed among nearly two dozen proposals from 40 top institutions. The institute will be under the auspices of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.