Southeast University was the first to establish the program and discipline of biomedical engineering in China. In October 1984, Academician WEI Yu established the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Instruments, which was renamed to the Biological Science and Medical Engineering Department in August 1993, and officially became the School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering (BME) in August 2006.In 1993, the school set up the first Bio-electronics doctoral program in China; Biomedical Engineering became a national first-level discipline in 1997 and a national key discipline in 2002. In 1998, the school was approved to set up the postdoctoral program, which was rated as a national outstanding postdoctoral program in 2005 and 2010, respectively. In 2007,2012 and 2017, Biomedical Engineering ranked first in the national discipline assessment (marked A+).

Throughout its nearly three decades of development, the school has formed relatively sophisticated high-level talented person cultivation and advanced scientific research systems. The school currently has four departments: biomedical engineering,information & systems biology, medical & biological physics and brain & learning science.It has equipped with a comprehensive set of labs and education bases, which are including 1 national key and “first-class discipline , 1 postdoctoral program and the specially-appointed professor post of “Changjiang Scholars Program”,1 national experimental teaching demonstration center, 1 national key laboratory, 1 provincial key laboratory and 1 national engineering practical education center, ect.In addition, there are more than 120 full-time teachers in the school; and the number of enrolled students is approximately 1042.