Advances in biomedical engineering

The most visible contributions of biomedical engineering to clinical practi ce involve instrumentation for diagnosis, therapy, and rehabilitation. Cell and tissue engineering also have emerged as clinical realities. In the nex t 25 years, advances in electronics, optics, materials, and miniaturization will accelerate development of more sophisticated devices for diagnosis an d therapy, such as imaging and virtual surgery. The emerging new field of b ioengineering-engineering based in the science of molecular cell biology-wi ll greatly expand the scope of biomedical engineering to tackle challenges in molecular and genomic medicine.