The present Department of Biomedical Engineering emerged out of an age long collaborative staff exchange program between the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL) and the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom. In I981, the Biomedical Engineering Unit was established to develop and deploy technical manpower in the areas of Engineering and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to service the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and CMUL. Thus, the early sets of trainees from the Unit are Biomedical Technologists.   

However, with the dawn of the new millennium, technological advancement led to the emergence of smart and innovative Biomedical devices that are supporting health care delivery systems.  Thus, the need arose to train high level technical manpower to meet the new demand.  In this regard, the Biomedical Engineering Unit was restructured in 2009. This led to the establishment of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences (FBMS) of the University of Lagos, College of Medicine.  The department stated running the Postgraduate Diploma (PGD) and Masters of Science (M.Sc.) degree programs through the School of Postgraduate Studies. These postgraduate programs are well subscribed, almost every student that went through it finds very good placement within the medical and engineering fields. However, some of them have continued to Doctor of Philosophy studies in Biomedical Engineering and other related disciplines.

Following the success of the postgraduate programs and increasing demand for Biomedical Engineers as indicated by the upspring of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree programs in some reputable Universities across the globe, University of Lagos got the approval of the National Universities Commission (NUC) to start the B.Sc. program in Biomedical Engineering.   Effectively, the program took-off during the 2017/2018 academic session.  

Clearly, Biomedical Engineering is a multidisciplinary program in which materials are selected from the classical Engineering programmes of Systems, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering as well as Biological and Clinical Sciences. The program was developed in response to the need for medical sciences to fully benefit from advances in Engineering and ICT.