History
BME Systems was incorporated in 1987 in Severna Park, Maryland by former employees and students of Johns Hopkins University to provide assistance to researchers in academia who could not afford a full-time engineering staff. In the 1990s commercial biotechnology and the entire biomedical industry began to increase in the region and efforts shifted to assisting customers in these industries. In 1988 the company moved to the Primo Electric Building in Landsdown, Maryland and then in 1997 to its current facility in the Canton area of Baltimore City.
The managing principal of BME Systems Inc. is Mark Longerbeam
Mr. Longerbeam holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Hampden-Sydney College and a Master of Engineering degree from the Department of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Virginia with a concentration in instrumentation and computing in medicine. His graduate research involved statistical modeling for optimization of complex radiotherapy/chemotherapy cancer treatment protocols. Mr. Longerbeam was employed as a programmer and consultant to the American Red Cross Blood Services Laboratories (Bethesda, MD) for the development of a national database for blood center collection statistics. In 1982 he joined the Bard Laboratories of Neurophysiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he was responsible for the design and development of analog and microprocessor-based instrumentation for neurophysiological recording and stimulus control. His work there included the programming and electronics design of a real-time visual stimulator providing temporal and spatial disparity for the study of depth perception, a microprocessor-based, multi-channel recording system involving the controlled movement of a matrix of extracellular recording electrodes and a modular, data-compressing buffer specialized for interfacing large numbers of active neural recording channels to minicomputers using a high-speed bus.
Other work has included:
- High-speed servomechanism design and control
- Creation of graphical programs for the visualization and statistical modeling of postsynaptic responses
- Client-server database development for applications in several fields of biology
- Implementation of high-performance programmable logic controllers and integration of supervisory control and data acquisition system for varied commercial processes in biotechnology
- Design and construction of controlled and semi-automated imaging systems to capture and parameterize of biological systems and processes
Mr. Longerbeam has worked with researchers at Johns Hopkins many other institutions and companies on development projects as varied as an interface for the control and data acquisition of an intracranial pressure implant device, a scleral suction device, cell culture in artificial organ applications, imaging applications for automated quantification of genetic mutations in plants and mechanisms for automating selective protein capture in smart membranes.
Mr. Longerbeam is an Argentine Tango instructor and enjoys teaching and travel for tango. He appreciates many types of music and will integrate Spotify into any process where it is remotely appropriate. His current passion and greatest challenge is learning piano.
Mr. Longerbeam has been President and CEO of BME Systems Inc. since its inception in 1987.