Research Facilities
The research laboratories in the Department of Bioengineering are fully equipped for state-of-the-art bioengineering research. Among the equipment available are: electronic, video, ultrasonic and imaging instruments for investigating cell theology, tissue viscoelasticity, orthopedic biomechanics, cardiac mechanics, and microcirculatory dynamics; implantable sensors for monitoring blood glucose concentration and oxygen tension; and facilities for molecular biology and genetic engineering.

Extensive equipment and research laboratories are available for research in: blood circulation, pathophysiology of microcirculation in muscle, brain, intestine, heart, lung, and other organs, electrochemical monitoring of biological materials, fluid transport, mechanical properties of biological tissues, physical and mathematical modeling, instrumentation, ultrasonic, scanning cytometry, flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, and transmission and scanning electron microscopy. In addition, an excellent Super Computer Center is available on campus, and the Department is well equipped with computing facilities.

The Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering (WIBE) received a Biomedical Engineering Development Award from the Whitaker Foundation in September 1993. The aim of the award is to strengthen graduate and postgraduate biomedical engineering education at universities and medical schools in the United States. With the support of the Whitaker Foundation Development Award, UCSD Bioengineering has recently acquired a confocal microscope system consisting of a Bio-Rad MRC-1000 with UV/Krypton/Argon lasers and two Nikon Diaphot inverted microscopes. The MRC-1000 has an excellent combination of resolution, sensitivity, multi-color acquisition, open software, hardware flexibility, and ease of use.

Also with the support of the Whitaker Foundation, ten high-performance Silicon Graphics workstations were provided for graduate research and instruction. Special graphics and visualization hardware make the new computers valuable not only for engineering modeling and data analysis, but also for image processing and 3D reconstruction and visualization of images from the confocal microscope. The workstations have 24-bit graphics, built-in color RGB digital video cameras and support for video display, sound and speech processing workstations. The Bioengineering Computing and Visualization Lab houses most of these computers and is accessible to all graduate students. The remaining machines are distributed throughout the bioengineering research labs in EBUI and all are interconnected via the building ethernet network. One workstation acts as a server for the Bio-Rad MRC1000 for reconstructing and visualizing tissue and cellular structures in three dimensions. The graphics subsystem has built-in Z-buffers and 8 parallel geometry engines to enable fast 24-bit color display and animation of complex 3D structures. The confocal server also features mass storage for large image files and Stereovision eyewear for 3D realism. There is specialized hardware for video input, output and realtime compression. This allows students to animate high-quality video recordings of time-dependent model analyses. The server is equipped with real-time video compression and decompression hardware and allows near-broadcast quality video movies to be made on site. This new capacity greatly enhances the ability of students to present and visualize the results of their analyses.

The Science and Engineering Research Facility, SERF, has expanded available lab and office space for Bioengineering since late 1996.

The UCSD campus has excellent library facilities. The Geisel Library, located next to the Engineering Buildings, was renovated in 1993 which doubled its original size. It contains two million volumes and an outstanding collection of bibliographies, indexes, encyclopedias, and other information resources in both print and electronic form. The Special Collections sections include rare books, manuscripts, annexing. search materials from historic collections to modern poetry. The Biomedical Library contains materials in biology and medicine, including modern cellular and molecular biology, neurosciences and genetics. It is housed in the School of Medicine, which is less than a 10-minute walk from the Department of Bioengineering.