American University of Sharjah (AUS) students won the Best Student Paper Award at the 4th IEEE Middle East Conference on Biomedical Engineering (MECBME’18) in Tunisia March 28-30, 2018. The conference provides a forum for professional engineers, scientists and academics engaged in research and development to convene and present their latest scholarly work in biomedical engineering.

Aseel Alatoom presented her paper entitled “Novel flexible implantable electrodes based on conductive polymers and titanium dioxide” at the conference. It was co-authored with Afifa Farooq, a fellow master’s student in biomedical engineering, with Dr. Amani Al-Othman, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering; Dr. Mohammad Al–Sayah, Professor of Chemistry; and Dr. Hasan Al-Nashash, Director of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program, as thesis advisors.

Speaking about the paper, Alatoom said:

“This project was part of my research assistant work during my first semester in the biomedical engineering program at AUS. I found the subject really interesting and I decided to pursue this research toward my master's degree.”

The winning paper focuses on implantable electrodes within the human body. The team aims to fabricate soft biocompatible implantable electrodes to help in stimulating and recording muscle response after peripheral nerve injuries. The project involved several students that helped to test various materials for optimization.

This accolade is one among many that has recently been won by students from the university’s College of Engineering (CEN) and reflects the emphasis AUS places on research and innovation as part of its commitment to become the premier research university in the region.