Biotechnology Process Engineering Center

Biological Engineering Education: A Model Program at MIT

Over the past quarter century, unprecedented advances have occurred in molecular cell biology, genomics, and proteomics. To take full advantage of these revolutionary advances requires a new engineering discipline with a molecular-to-systems view of biological processes. In support of this new discipline, a biology-based engineering curriculum is needed to enable engineers to address future problems in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, tissue engineering, and other areas. Through the efforts of faculty at MIT's Biotechnology Process Engineering Center, such a new curriculum has appeared at MIT.

It began with a course on therapeutic protein production, co-taught by BPEC faculty members Prof. Daniel Wang in engineering and Prof. Harvey Lodish in Biology. This course became enormously popular, and students asked for more subjects co-taught by engineers and biologists. Faculty responded by developing MIT's first-ever interdepartmental minor degree program for undergraduates, the Biomedical Engineering Minor Degree, which was initiated in 1995 and has quickly grown to become the most popular undergraduate minor degree at MIT.

More courses were developed, and in 1998 a new formal academic unit, the Division of Bioengineering & Environmental Health, was begun to foster development of new academic programs at the interface of biology and engineering. The Division, which has recently been re-christened "Biological Engineering," has faculty from Biology and from several engineering disciplines. A new PhD program in Bioengineering began in 1998, and a Master's of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering followed in 2000. Development of an undergraduate major in Biological Engineering is under discussion.

To learn more about this topic:
Visit MIT's Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (BPEC) web site at http://web.mit.edu/bpec/about/aboutbpec.html.

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Last modified: April 21, 2006