Harvard, M.I.T. to Examine Medical Use of Technology

Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have established a joint committee to study ways of applying the techniques of mathematics and engineering to medical problems.

The committee--named the Joint Liason Committee on Engineering and Living Systems--includes members of the Harvard Medical School, the division of Engineering and Applied Physics, and the medical and technical departments at M.I.T.

Dr. David D. Rutstein '30, Watts Professor of Preventive Medicine, and Murray Eden, professor of Electrical Engineering at M.I.T., have been named committee co-chairmen.

According to a Harvard-M.I.T. announcement, the group is designed to act as a clearing house for ideas, to coordinate studies already in progress and to help doctors and hospital administrators find technical assistance in research problems.

Three sub-committees will deal with the particular fields of research, education and medical care.

The announcement said the new committee will stress the use of computers to improve hospital care. Several research teams at Massachusetts General Hospital have already begun to investigate computer use in bookkeeping, applying medicines, and diagnosing diseases.

Pool Findings

But each of these teams has had limited resources thus far, the announcement said, and communication among them has not always been effective. The new committee is expected to allow research heads to pool findings and draw on the combined resources of Harvard and M.I.T.

The committee will also work on improving the design of replacement parts for the human body. Although recent progress has been made in developing plastic organs and electronically-controlled artificial limbs, medical researchers have in the past, complained that they don't know enough about fluid engineering and electrical circuitry.

The new committee expects now to be able to match problems of that sort with the engineering and electrical experts who can solve them. Eventually, the announcement said, it hopes to develop doctors who are skilled in the engineering techniques available. It may inspire a medical school course on medicine and technology.