Bioengineering
Bioengineering has
received considerable attention on the international level in recent years as
one of the new thrusts of the chemical engineering profession. It has, however, been an area of active
research in the Department of Chemical Engineering for well over three
decades. Bioengineering research in our
department focuses on applying sound engineering principles to understand
fundamental biomolecular processes and to develop innovative solutions to
practical problems in biotechnology and in the biochemical, pharmaceutical, and
life science industries. As such, much of the research is highly
interdisciplinary, involving collaborations with molecular biologists,
bioorganic chemists, biochemists, geneticists, and microbiologists.
Our biomolecular and
biological engineering emphasis covers a wide range of subjects including
biomaterials, drug delivery systems, engineering of novel enzyme catalysts, the
design and engineering of antibodies for both stability and functionality, the
design of high throughput technologies for the rapid discovery of antibodies
for protein function analysis (proteomics), understanding of protein folding in
vivo; development of controlled drug delivery technologies; characterization of
drug and protein transport in biohydrogels for biosensors, bioseparations, and
controlled release; design and engineering of novel materials processes for
enhancing the bioavailability of water insoluble drugs; interfacing of biology
and materials; biomanipulation of nanoscale structures; molecular and
mesoscopic modeling of protein-protein and protein surface interactions;
multiscale simulation techniques for folding events and self-assembly of
biomolecules; tissue engineering scaffolds; patterning for bionanotechnology
applications; molecular imprinting techniques for biomedical recognition; gene
therapy; bioinformatics; solute transport in specific cell lines; and
cell-tissue interactions. Our contributions have been in several areas of drug
delivery, biomaterials, mass transfer, kinetics and reaction engineering,
biopolymers and biomedical engineering.
Our research has been
published in major scientific journals, including Science, Nature, and the Proceedings
of the
Cross-disciplinary research
across Departments and Colleges has led to major new interactions with
Pharmacy, Chemistry, Biology and local
Faculty