20 Years of the Bioengineering Department at the Politecnico, Milano, and Beyond… [Guest Editorial]

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first Bioengineering Department in Italy at the Politecnico di Milano, a number of articles in this issue highlight the department´s achievements. The department was eventually founded in 1990 after many years of research and didactic activity in the area that officially began in 1969 when the first teaching course, called biological electronics, was offered in the electronic engineering specialization.