The fusion of engineering science with clinical medicine is set to play a central role in the development and improvement of treatment across a range of diseases and medical conditions.

Technology can be applied to help save lives through healing or replacement of vital organs, and through the improvement of imaging techniques to detect the onset of disease more effectively.

It can also enhance the quality of life for sufferers of disabilities through better design of prosthetics and through novel mobile-phone applications for effective monitoring and communication.

Located at the Old Road Campus on the Churchill Hospital site, next to Oxford's major clinical teaching hospitals, the new Oxford Institute of Biomedical Engineering opened its doors in January 2008.

The Institute offers a centralised venue for engineers, biologists and clinicians to work together and to coordinate expertise, discoveries and best practice in order to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of a range of conditions.

This £25m project provides purpose-built laboratories, shared common support facilities, a core of securely funded staff, the latest equipment for research and development and the right setting to promote collaboration among medical, biological and physical scientists and engineers.

The Institute also directly benefits from close proximity to the Oxford Centre for Cancer Medicine, the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, the Radiation Oncology and Biology Unit, the Jenner Institute and the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics.

These web pages describe the research being conducted in the Institute, the people who are carrying it out, and the undergraduate and graduate educational opportunities offered by the University of Oxford Department of Engineering Science in biomedical engineering.