OU Faculty Elected to Prestigious Medical and Biological Engineering Institute

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AIBME Fellows

Wei Chen, Ph.D., and Javier Jo, Ph.D., faculty in the Gallogly College of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, have been elected to the College of Fellows by the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

The institute’s College of Fellows is composed of the top 2% of medical and biological engineers in the United States. Chen and Jo were elected by peers and members of the College of Fellows for advancing the clinical translation of optical imaging and pioneering its integration with machine learning methods to enable personalized medicine. 

“I want to congratulate these two outstanding engineering faculty who have been elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering,” said John Klier, Ph.D., dean of the Gallogly College of Engineering. “AIMBE Fellows lead the way for technological growth and advancement in the fields of medical and biological engineering. We are extremely proud to have two of our faculty elected to this prestigious group.” 

Chen, Stephenson Chair and Professor in the Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering, has worked for more than two decades to develop a novel therapy, localized ablative immunotherapy (LAIT), to treat metastatic cancers. LAIT, combining laser ablation and a local application of a novel immunostimulant, can eliminate treated local tumors and eradicate untreated distant metastases. Chen notes that the therapy has shown exciting outcomes in pre-clinical studies and preliminary clinical trials with late-stage, metastatic cancer patients. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Shandong University in China, and his master’s and doctoral degrees in theoretical high-energy particle physics from the University of Oregon.

A professor in the OU School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a member of OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center, Jo is advancing the clinical translation of optical imaging and pioneering its integration with machine learning methods to enable personalized medicine. His expertise in applying engineering concepts to solve medical problems has earned him more than $8 million in external funding. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Southern California. He is also a fellow of SPIE, the International Society for Optics and Photonics.

AIMBE Fellows have been awarded the Nobel Prize, the Presidential Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Technology and Innovation. Many are members of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.

A formal induction ceremony will take place during the institute’s annual event March 25. Chen and Jo will be inducted along with 152 colleagues who make up the AIMBE Fellow Class of 2022. 

To learn more about the Gallogly College of Engineering at OU, visit www.ou.edu/coe.




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