Biological Systems and Materials

TD Focus:
Investigations, including experimental, of biological and biologically inspired materials and systems, with an emphasis on structure, property and process relationships.

Technical Division Bylaws

To download the slides used and the proceedings paper for Eric Brown's presentation, "Biomimetic Composites: Inspiration to Application" presented in Portland, OR in June 2005 (single pdf file, ~2.9MB), Click Here. 

Biological Systems and Materials Division - Updated May 2009

TD Focus:
Investigations, including experimental and modeling, of biological and biologically inspired materials and systems, with an emphasis on structure, property and process relationships.

The Biological Systems and Materials Division has been focusing on embracing and serving the duality of its membership, which consists of many established members of the society and the field of theoretical and applied mechanics who are developing research programs focusing on biological systems and materials, and simultaneously numerous researchers from the biological sciences who are adopting the experimental and analytical techniques of mechanics.  TD activities have included hosting numerous sessions in annual SEM Meetings; organizing the special issue of the journal Experimental Mechanics on "Mechanics of Organic, Implant and Bio-Inspired Materials" (June 2007); encouraging TD-related submissions to, and serving as manuscript reviewers for, the regular issues of Experimental Mechanics and Experimental Techniques; and developing joint sessions with other TDs.

The Technical Division organized 9 sessions at the 2008 SEM Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL.  There were 35 papers in TD sessions and 9 related for a total of 44 papers in the biological systems and materials area. These sessions covered a variety of research areas, including the mechanics of hard and soft natural materials, novel biomaterials and biomedical systems, and biomimetics. Several presentations that overlapped in focus between our TD and other TDs could be found in additional sessions on composites, MEMS, dynamic testing, and time dependent materials.  Students of TD members also participated in the student competition. Devendra Bajaj, a student of Dwayne Arola (University of Maryland Baltimore County), won the 3rd place for his paper: “A Comparison of Natural and Unnatural Crack Growth in Human Enamel”

In preparation for the 2009 SEM Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Biological Systems and Materials Division has organized 5 sessions alone and biologically-related papers can also be found in 4 other sessions addressing inverse problems, MEMS/Nanotechnology TD, time dependent materials, and acoustic materials.  There are 31 total bio-related talks to be presented at the 2009 meeting.  The TD sessions will cover a variety of research areas, including the mechanics of hard and soft natural and bio-inspired materials, nanomechanics, biomedical and tissue engineering, bioMEMs, and modeling. These sessions also include 2 keynote presentations hosted by our TD, “Mechanical Performance of Dental Fillers Based on Alumina Nanoparticles” by Dr. Marwan Al-Haik and “Modeling to Understand Tissue Function” by Dr. Nigel Shrive.

The strong attendance at previous TD meetings is expected to continue in 2009 at the annual conference. Many of our TD members are young faculty members who are enthusiastic about participating in the TD to develop leadership skills and work with a professional society, but are also eager to learn about issues related to career development and balancing multiple commitments.  With an eye towards providing career development opportunities in line with the Panel on Junior Faculty Career Development being help at the 2009 conference, our TD has been discussing how to involve our members in federal funding grant review panels such as through NSF and NIH. In the coming years, the TD would also like to establish connections with other biomedical engineering societies so that sessions at other meetings could be jointly sponsored by SEM.  We have also discussed a means of giving TD-based awards (outstanding student presentation, outstanding TD presentation), but need to put forth a formal mechanism to make sure this gets done.