Introduction to Biomedical Engineering

Michael M. Domach received a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1978. His elective studies focused on organic and environmental chemistry. Immersion in life science and bioengineering occurred during his Ph.D. work at Cornell University under the supervision of Professor Michael L. Shuler. His academic career began in 1983 and has been spent at Carnegie Mellon University. His industrial experience includes working with organic chemists at General Electric to develop new product synthesis routes and cofounding a company involved in directing the growth and differentiation of stem cells. Professor Domach currently is a member of the chemical and biomedical engineering departments at Carnegie Mellon. Additionally, he served as the department head of biomedical engineering for 8.5 years and worked twice as a program director at the National Science Foundation (2000--2001; 2004--2005). The author's research focuses on cell sensing, biocomputation, and cell engineering. In 2000, an article that was published in 1984, based on work from his Ph.D. thesis, was voted to be among the top 20 most influential publications that have appeared over the last 40 years in the journal "Biotechnology and Bioengineering." In 2003, an article he wrote with one of his first graduate students on biological network analysis was denoted in a review as one of the first constraint-type models to be developed and fruitfully applied to discriminating between alternative physiology-based hypotheses. His subsequent publications on (1) using NMR to investigate live cells and (2) probing via electrical impedance arrays the response of cellular adhesion to drugs have been adopted for use in other engineering and biophysics textbooks. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Biological and Medical Engineers. Outdoor activities engage him when he is not working at Carnegie Mellon. He owns and manages a timberland in Weld, ME, and is a member of the Maine Forest Owners Association. The author keeps his other two camps in shape as well, which has fostered some improvement in his carpentry skills. One camp is located in Maine on Peabody Pond and the other is situated within the Sproul State Forest(Pennsylvania). He has completed two backpacking trips in Alaska. One was conducted in "The Gates of the Arctic, "where the Brooks Range meets the tundra. That trip included a hitchhiked flight aboard a mail plane to the Nunamiut Eskimo/Inuit village, Anaktuvak Pass. Additionally, with another engineering colleague, Gary Powers, and other friends, he has visited the James Bay region of Quebec and Ontario each summer for about 20 years. There, good fishing and vivid northernlight displays have generated fine memories and time to think up new things to investigate.