Biomedical Engineering – (M.Sc.)

There are many different applications for biomedical engineering. This is one of the most fertile areas of technological innovation in the 21st century !

Biomedical engineering, biological engineering, clinical and medical engineering… the boundaries between these neighbouring disciplines are fluid and evolve over time.

Biological engineering is the manipulation of living things with the aim of productivity. Historically, biological engineering was mainly associated with the food industry and in this sense was far removed from medicine. Biological engineering today means the manipulation of living organisms for therapeutic ends. It has thus largely penetrated into the pharmaceutical and medical sectors. In this sense, biological engineering is today closely linked to biomedical engineering. It can be applied to the most advanced disciplines of biomedical engineering (gene therapy, cellular and tissue engineering, and systems biology).

Similarly, clinical engineering is the development of specific instruments for hospitals and patients (scanners, assisted surgery, monitoring, implants, etc). Historically, medical engineering was at the heart of biomedical engineering. Moreover, it did not require specialist training in life sciences because the challenges were purely technological in nature. These days, the line between medical engineering and biomedical engineering is more blurred, because an increasing number of medical instruments relate to the more fundamental aspects of biology. Active implant technologies which aim to overcome hearing or sight difficulties are a good example of this.

The application examples are numerous and varied: the fabrication of biocompatible prostheses, medical devices, development of medical instruments used to diagnose and treat patients (electroencephalography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), mammography...).

Biomedical engineering furthermore calls upon a wide range of technical and scientific disciplines. The course programme is thus made up of specific teaching in biomedical engineering, organised in conjunction with the Faculties of Sciences and Medicine and on the other hand a technical education from other Applied Sciences programmes.

Career opportunities

Biomedics is numbered amongst one of the sectors experiencing the strongest growth at the present time, particularly in research and development. A biomedical engineer is especially well prepared for an engineering profession in a company turned towards the life sciences.

Medical and clinical orientation

The hospital sector, the instrumentation and medical appliances sector (with large companies such as Siemens and Philips) and a growing number of small and medium sized businesses, often specialized in a very specific niche and close to the world of research.

Biological orientation

The agrofoods sector, the biotechnologies sector, the pharmaceutical sector, which counts an important number of large companies (such as UCB and Glaxo Smith Kline) and a growing number of small and medium sized businesses close to the world of research.

For each of these sectors we find engineers in the professions of production, consultancy, development and research. But, in comparison with more traditional industrial sectors, the proportion of research and development engineers is broadly greater than that of production engineers. Innovation is in effect the key to the development of all the activities in biomedical engineering. It is thus above all in this sector that an engineer's biomedical education finds its fullest expression.

Because it constitutes a developing sector, biomedical engineering is also a sector in which a complementary education and the doctorate are given more value than in an engineer's traditional disciplines. We find a growing number of doctors in applied sciences in consultancy positions for the hospital sector, in positions of responsibility in the research and development departments of small and medium sized businesses and in the setting up of spin-offs and start-ups.