Bioengineering students provide solutions to many fundamental problems in Medicine and Biology. If you are interested in a typical problem that was solved by a UCSD bioengineering student, in the following you can find a few recent examples. An answer to each question is given in the listed publications.

Mechanotransduction by Fluid Shear

Q. What is the fluid stress distribution on the membrane of a leukocyte actively migrating on substrate?
A. Su et al. 1997, 1998

Q. To what degree do integrins control mechanotransduction of leukocytes by fluid shear stress?
A. Marschel et al., 2002

Microvascular Biorheology

Q. What is the mechanism by which a very small number of circulating leukocytes (less than 1%) can impose a large reduction of blood flow in the microcirculation even without adhering to the endothelium?
A. Helmke et al. 1997, 1998

Activated cells in the microcirculation, like leukocytes, may cause complications and don't have the ability to freely circulate.

Q. What could be a mechanism by which leukocytes become deactivated ("downregulated") in the circulation even though the cells have to be upregulated in order to migrate from the bone marrow (where they are produced) across the endothelium into the circulation?
A. Moazzam et al., 1997

The lymphatics, a unidirectional transport system for fluids and immune cells.

Q. Do lymphatics operate with just one valve system (the classical intralymphatic bileaflet valves) as assumed in the past, or do they need two valve systems ?
A. Trzewik etal., 2001; Schmid-Schönbein and Zweifach, 1994

Physiological shock, a condition with high mortality.

Q. In which organ(s) is the origin of the powerful inflammatory cell activators that are detected already during the early phases of shock? Note the answer to this question is of extraordinary importance for understanding not only shock but may be also the origin of many other cardiovascular diseases.
A. Kistler et al, 2000, Waldo et al., 2003

Q. Is there a way you may ever be able to block the lethal progression of physiological shock ? If that were the case, medicine would have the tools to avoid unnecessary deaths.
A. Mitsuoka et al., 2000, 2002

Arterial hypertension is a vascular disease.

Q. What is the mechanism by which capillaries are destroyed in the microcirculation of hypertensives?
A. Vogt et al., 2001, Tran et al., 2007

Q. Can you design a technology to measure oxgyen free radical production ("toxic oxygen production") in hypertensive patients?
A. Lacy et al., 1998; Lacy et al., 1998

Q. What may be a mechanism by which hypertensives become immune-suppressed?
A. Suzuki et al., 1999; Suematsu et al., 1995, DeLano et al., 2008

Q. Can you design an approach to block (at least in part) the excessive oxygen free radical production in hypertensive patients ? The answer to this question is of importance to companies that are trying to develop medications for better treatment of hypertensive patients.
A. Suzuki et al., 1998; Swei et al., 1999 , Kobayashi et al., 2006