Revolutionizing Healthcare with Engineering

In my house, engineering and healthcare are dinner table topics. My wife works in healthcare, and I’ve spent my career in engineering. Between us, the conversation often lands on how the two fields—like us—are inseparable. Whether it’s new imaging tools or smarter surgical devices, we’re seeing the lines blur in the best possible way.

For decades, engineering and medicine have shared a partnership, from the first surgical instruments to today’s advanced imaging systems. But as highlighted in a recent Forbes article, the intersection between healthcare and engineering has become an active, rapidly advancing field. Mechanical engineers are building the future of medicine from the inside out, helping doctors and researchers reimagine what’s possible.

I’m especially proud of the groundbreaking work happening within ASME’s Bioengineering Division. Take Dr. Alison Marsden, for example. Dr. Marsden is a long-standing member of ASME, former Chair of the Bioengineering Executive Committee, and 2023 recipient of the ASME Mow Medal. She was also the lead researcher on the development of a new tool that can design and 3D print complex networks of blood vessel–like structures. These networks can carry nutrients through lab-grown tissues, helping them stay alive. This technology makes it easier to design and build the kinds of blood vessel systems that will be needed to grow full human tissues and organs in the future.

Elsewhere, researchers have designed the OcclusionChip, a lab device that mimics the way blood flow gets blocked in small vessels during sickle cell disease which an estimated 7.74 million people were living with globally in 2021. Using this device, researchers tested different treatments and found that some can greatly reduce these blockages. This helps scientists better study and develop new sickle cell therapies in the lab.

The lead scientist working on the OcclusionChip is Dr. Umut Gurkan, an ASME member and Bioengineering Division honors committee volunteer. Dr. Gurkan was also awarded the ASME Woo Medal in 2025. At ASME, we’re proud to celebrate members like Dr. Marsden and Dr. Gurkan who embody ASME’s mission: advancing engineering for the benefit of humanity. 

Nowhere is that mission more evident than in the work our members are doing to merge innovation with compassion and technology with care. The future of medicine isn’t just being written in hospitals—it’s being designed, built, and tested in engineering labs around the world. And together, we’re not only imagining what’s next. We’re making it real.



With regards,

Tom Costabile, P. E., FASME
ASME Executive Director/CEO