“Biomedical engineering for global healthcare”

Recent advances in medical technology have significantly improved the human health in developed countries. However, these advances remain out of touch for much of the worldpsilas population. We still face unprecedented healthcare challenges in the 21st century. The prevalence of major diseases today, from the global AIDS pandemic to antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis, cuts across the healthcare, political, economic, social, and biomedical disciplines: These diseases will continue affecting the world unless major measures are taken to develop comprehensive prevention and treatment programs. Thus, biomedical engineers are expected to play a critical role in developing novel and affordable medical technology and drugs to solve global healthcare problems, especially in the developing countries. In this talk, we discuss the healthcare systems, financing, delivery and management in the world, recent advances in information technologies in biomedicine and their use in diagnosing, treating, and preventing diseases, using novel technologies to develop new drugs, technology regulation, and ethical issues surrounding the use of novel technologies.