Biomedical engineering is the application of the principles and techniques of engineering to the field of medicine. It is principally involved in the design and construction of medical devices and health technologies such as medical equipment, prosthetics, medical devices, diagnostic devices (medical imaging) and therapy. Also involved in the management or administration of technical resources related to a system of hospitals. Combining engineering expertise with medical needs to profit in the care of health. The cultivation of tissues is usually considered part of bioengineering and sometimes the production of certain drugs.

Areas of knowledge:Biomedical engineering is widely recognized as a multidisciplinary field, resulting from a wide spectrum of disciplines that the influence from different fields and sources of information. Because of their extreme diversity, it is strange that bioengineering focus on one particular aspect. There are many different breakdowns of the engineering disciplines, often threshed in: Biomagnetism and technical brain Imaging and biomedical optics. Biomaterials Biomechanics and biotransporte Medical Instrumentation Engineering molecular and CELL Systems biology In other cases, disciplines within the biongenieria divided on the proximity to other fields of engineering more established, which can include: Chemical engineering - often associated with engineering, biochemistry, cellular, molecular, new materials and fabrics, etc.. Clinical engineering - often associated with Engineering Medical or Engineering Hospital, administration and maintenance of medical equipment in a clinic or hospital. Electronic engineering - often associated with bioelectricity, bioinstrumentation, imaging and medical instrumentation. Mechanical engineering - often associated with biomechanics, biotransporte, and modeling of biological systems. Optics and optical engineering - medical imaging, imaging and instrumentation.

Fields of action:In the beginning, this discipline was linked primarily to the application of techniques of engineering electrical and electronics for the construction of medical devices (medical instrumentation), and the design of prosthetics and orthotics (biomechanical and rehabilitation). Subsequently, a very important part of engineering applications to medicine was instrumentation for imaging the human body (medical imaging). With the development of computers, the importance of instrumentation was decreasing while the processing of acquired signals gained further momentum because it was possible to obtain additional information from the instrumentation signals provided, and that was not visible directly from the pure lines (biomedical signal processing). Today the discipline is linked also to others such as genomics and proteomics (computational biology).

History:Some authors indicate that there is biomedical engineering since the remedies applied to particular problems of the individual as a prosthesis of the big toe that was discovered in a tomb in Egypt with a length of more than 3000 years [citation needed]. Other authors refer to anatomical drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci and approaches to lever arms or the work of Luigi Galvani and Lord Kelvin on the electrical conduction in the living [citation needed]. However, the development of electric and electronic instrumentation was an explosion of results and can be considered as one of the closest sources of biomedical engineering. This is mainly between the years 1890 and 1930. Examples include designs for recording electrophysiological signals, beginning with records of AD Waller in human hearts (1887), refinement of the technique by W. Einthoven to develop a string galvanometer (1901) and applying this to record EEG signals in humans by Berger (1924). The electronic instrumentation from vacuum tubes were used by E. Lovett Garceau to amplify these electrical signals and the first commercial system three-channel EEG was built by Alfred Grass in 1935. Another example is the development of imaging instrumentation. Since the discovery of X-rays by Rontgen in 1895 to its first application in biomedicine spent a week. Since 1896, Siemens and General Electric already selling these systems. Currently, new developments in imaging have taken much longer to achieve its clinical application. The principle of magnetic resonance was discovered in 1946, but it was not until 30 years later, that may have developed a system for use in humans.