You might not think of electrical engineers as being leaders in medical research. But at UMR, EE researchers like R. Joe Stanley and Randy Moss have been working for several years on developing a method to detect skin cancer via digital imaging. Some of their latest work, published in the February issue of the scientific journal Skin Research and Technology, may help physicians better detect melanoma based on skin lesion color.

Lead author Stanley, along with Moss and Rolla dermatologist William V. Stoecker, used a color histogram technique to evaluate dermoscopy images of skin lesions. The results of their experiment "appear to indicate that the melanoma color feature information is located in the interior of the lesion." Their report describes techniques to possibly determine whether a lesion might be malignant based on relative color.

The researchers' paper is available as a PDF from Skin Research and Technology.

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Three-time UMR graduate James Friend has a big idea about a very small surgical device.

As reported today by Australian newspaper The Age, in Melbourne, Friend and his colleagues at Monash University are "developing micro-robots they hope will be able to swim through the human body and perform medical tasks." Friend hopes "to build a tiny machine no wider than two human hairs side by side to do the job."

Friend leads the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Monash. He learned the art of designing minuscule motors at UMR, where he earned a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering from UMR in 1992, then stayed on to earn his master's and Ph.D., both in mechanical engineering, in 1994 and 1998.

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Two UMR faculty members were recently recognized for their medical research. Dr. Chang-Soo Kim is trying to find a better way for people with diabetes to check their blood sugar levels and Dr. Mohamed Rahaman is working on new ceramic bearings for use in joint replacements. Read the full story here.

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