According to the Whitaker foundation which is the most prestigious organization aiming to promote and support the growth of biomedical engineering education and research, biomedical engineering is defined as follows:

Biomedical engineering is a discipline that advances knowledge in engineering, biology and medicine, and improves human health through cross-disciplinary activities that integrate the engineering sciences with the biomedical sciences and clinical practice. It includes:

1. The acquisition of new knowledge and understanding of living systems through the innovative and substantive application of experimental and analytical techniques based on the engineering sciences.

2. The development of new devices, algorithms, processes and systems that advance biology and medicine and improve medical practice and health care delivery.

As used by the foundation, the term "biomedical engineering research" is thus defined in a broad sense: It includes not only the relevant applications of engineering to medicine but also to the basic life sciences.

As in all other developed countries, Turkey spends an important part of its annual budget for health care. To improve the quality and effectiveness of the health services new and more sophisticated devices, techniques and systems must be developed. This increases the need for well-educated professionals and high quality researchers in the field. Similar to the examples in other developed countries, Biomedical Engineering research has been started in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Middle East Technical University in 1970s. This has been reflected by MSc and PhD dissertations in total over a hundred thesis. In addition to the biomedical education and research in EEE department, a separate Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program has been started in 1983 and has been active since then.

Students of these programs may specialize in the fields of biomedical electronics and instrumentation, biomedical imaging, biomedical signal processing, numerical modeling of biomedical systems and processes, and clinical engineering. The distinguished faculty members of the METU EEE department specialized in all fields of electrical and electronics engineering continues to provide high-quality education vital for making research in all of the above mentioned biomedical engineering fields.

Currently, the graduates of these two programs are at distinguished positions in biomedical education, research and industry all over the world. These graduates have pioneered and played important roles in the formation of biomedical device industry, clinical engineering, biomedical engineering research and education in Turkey.