Students act as if they are biological engineers following the steps of the engineering design process to design and create protein models to replace the defective proteins in a child’s body. Jumping off from a basic understanding of DNA and its transcription and translation processes, students learn about the many different proteins types and what happens if protein mutations occur. Then they focus on structural, transport and defense proteins during three challenges posed by the R&D; bio-engineering hypothetical scenario. Using common classroom supplies such as paper, tape and craft sticks, student pairs design, sketch, build, test and improve their own protein models to meet specific functional requirements: to strengthen bones (collagen), to capture oxygen molecules (hemoglobin) and to capture bacteria (antibody). By designing and testing physical models to accomplish certain functional requirements, students come to understand the relationship between protein structure and function. They graph and analyze the class data, then share and compare results across all teams to determine which models were the most successful. Includes a quiz, three worksheets and a reference sheet.

The course Bio-Inspired Design gives an overview of non-conventional mechanical approaches in nature and shows how this knowledge can lead to more creativity in mechanical design and to better (simpler, smaller, more robust) solutions than with conventional technology. The course discusses a large number of biological organisms with smart constructions, unusual mechanisms or clever sensing and processing methods and presents a number of technical examples and designs of bio-inspired instruments and machines.

This course is offered for graduate students who are interested in the interdisciplinary study of bio-inspired structures. The intent is to introduce students to newly inspired modern advanced structures and their applications. It aims to link traditional advanced composites to bio-inspired structures and to discuss their generic properties. A link between materials design, strength and structural behavior at different levels (material, element, structural and system levels) is made. For each level, various concepts will be introduced. The importance of structural, dynamic, thermodynamic and kinetic theories related to such processing is highlighted. The pedagogy is based on active learning and a balance of guest lectures and hands-on activities.

Biomechatronics is a contraction of biomechanics and mechatronics. In this course the function and coordination of the human motion apparatus is the central focus, and the design of assistive devices for the support of the function of the motion apparatus.

Have you ever asked what “biobased” means or wondered about the key aspects in developing and commercializing biobased products? This course will answer those questions and more; highlighting the opportunities, hurdles, and driving forces of the bioeconomy.

Today’s industries face enormous global challenges when it comes to the fossil-based economy. Fossil resources are no longer a desirable feedstock for many products and governments’ climate goals put various limitations to its usage. Moreover, consumer perception has become an increasingly important factor. With biobased products as an alternative to the fossil-based economy, the bioeconomy can provide viable solutions to these challenges.

The course describes the different types of biomass, the methods of refinery and typical conversion technologies used for biobased products. You’ll also engage in a study of the practical and real-life examples emerging in the market: biopolymers, bioenergy, bioflavours, and biosurfactants.

The course has been developed by a team of experts from seven different institutions and universities in three different countries, all sharing their personal perspectives on the opportunities and challenges faced by the biobased industry. The three top-ranked institutions Delft University of Technology, RWTH Aachen University, and Wageningen University & Research offer additional, more advanced courses to continue your learning journey:

Industrial Biotechnology: a more advanced course that digs deeper into engineering aspects of bio-based products.
MicroMasters Chemistry and Technology for Sustainability: Help drive the transition from fossil sources to renewable energy ones and engineer a biobased future.
Sustainable Development: The Water-Energy-Food Nexus: Introduction to sustainable development and its relation to the Water-Energy-Food Nexus.

Students learn how to manipulate the behavior of water by using biochar—a soil amendment used to improve soil functions. As a fluid, water interacts with soil in a variety of ways. It may drain though a soil’s non-solid states, or its “pores”; lay above the soil; or move across cell membranes via osmosis. In this experiment, students solve the specific problem of standing water by researching, designing, and engineering solutions that enable water to drain faster. This activity is designed for students to explore how biochar helps soils to act as “sponges” in order to retain more water.

This course focuses on the interaction of chemical engineering, biochemistry, and microbiology. Mathematical representations of microbial systems are featured among lecture topics. Kinetics of growth, death, and metabolism are also covered. Continuous fermentation, agitation, mass transfer, and scale-up in fermentation systems, and enzyme technology round out the subject material.

The course, which spans two thirds of a semester, provides students with a research-inspired laboratory experience that introduces standard biochemical techniques in the context of investigating a current and exciting research topic, acquired resistance to the cancer drug Gleevec. Techniques include protein expression, purification, and gel analysis, PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, kinase activity assays, and protein structure viewing. This class is part of the new laboratory curriculum in the MIT Department of Chemistry. Undergraduate Research-Inspired Experimental Chemistry Alternatives (URIECA) introduces students to cutting edge research topics in a modular format. Acknowledgments Development of this course was funded through an HHMI Professors grant to Professor Catherine L. Drennan.

Considers the process of neurotransmission, especially chemicals used in the brain and elsewhere to carry signals from nerve terminals to the structures they innervate. Focuses on monoamine transmitters (acetylcholine; serotonin; dopamine and norepinephrine); also examines amino acid and peptide transmitters and neuromodulators like adenosine. Macromolecules that mediate neurotransmitter synthesis, release, inactivation, and receptor-mediated actions are discussed, as well as factors that regulate their activity and the second-messenger systems they control.

Students explore the biosphere's environments and ecosystems, learning along the way about the plants, animals, resources and natural cycles of our planet. Over the course of lessons 2-6, students use their growing understanding of various environments and the engineering design process to design and create their own model biodome ecosystems - exploring energy and nutrient flows, basic needs of plants and animals, and decomposers. Students learn about food chains and food webs. They are introduced to the roles of the water, carbon and nitrogen cycles. They test the effects of photosynthesis and transpiration. Students are introduced to animal classifications and interactions, including carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, predator and prey. They learn about biomimicry and how engineers often imitate nature in the design of new products. As everyday applications are interwoven into the lessons, students consider why a solid understanding of one's environment and the interdependence within ecosystems can inform the choices we make and the way we engineer our communities.

In this multi-day activity, students explore environments, ecosystems, energy flow and organism interactions by creating a scale model biodome, following the steps of the engineering design process. The Procedure section provides activity instructions for Biodomes unit, lessons 2-6, as students work through Parts 1-6 to develop their model biodome. Subjects include energy flow and food chains, basic needs of plants and animals, and the importance of decomposers. Students consider why a solid understanding of one's environment and the interdependence of an ecosystem can inform the choices we make and the way we engineer our own communities. This activity can be conducted as either a very structured or open-ended design.

Each term, the class selects a new set of professional journal articles on bioengineering topics of current research interest. Some papers are chosen because of particular content, others are selected because they illustrate important points of methodology. Each week, one student leads the discussion, evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, and importance of each paper. Subject may be repeated for credit a maximum of four terms. Letter grade given in the last term applies to all accumulated units of 16.459.

This course does not seek to provide answers to ethical questions. Instead, the course hopes to teach students two things. First, how do you recognize ethical or moral problems in science and medicine? When something does not feel right (whether cloning, or failing to clone) ‰ŰÓ what exactly is the nature of the discomfort? What kind of tensions and conflicts exist within biomedicine? Second, how can you think productively about ethical and moral problems? What processes create them? Why do people disagree about them? How can an understanding of philosophy or history help resolve them? By the end of the course students will hopefully have sophisticated and nuanced ideas about problems in bioethics, even if they do not have comfortable answers.

Our goal is to present the key observations and unifying concepts upon which modern biology is based; it is not a survey of all biology! Once understood, these foundational observations and concepts should enable you to approach any biological process, from disease to kindness, from a scientific perspective. To understand biological systems we need to consider them from two complementary perspectives; how they came to be (the historic, that is, evolutionary) and how their structures, traits, and behaviors are produced (the mechanistic, that is, the physicochemical)

This course is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in using primary research literature to discuss and learn about current research around sulfur biogeochemistry and astrobiology.

Imagine you are a salesman needing to visit 100 cities connected by a set of roads. Can you do it while stopping in each city only once? Even a supercomputer working at 1 trillion operations per second would take longer than the age of the universe to find a solution when considering each possibility in turn. In 1994, Leonard Adleman published a paper in which he described a solution, using the tools of molecular biology, for a smaller 7-city example of this problem. His paper generated enormous scientific and public interest, and kick-started the field of Biological Computing, the main subject of this discussion based seminar course. Students will analyze the Adleman paper, and the papers that preceded and followed it, with an eye for identifying the engineering and scientific aspects of each paper, emphasizing the interplay of these two approaches in the field of Biological Computing. This course is appropriate for both biology and non-biology majors. Care will be taken to fill in any knowledge gaps for both scientists and engineers.

This page, presented by MIT and made available online via the university's Open Courseware site, presents a series of materials on biological engineering. Topics include introduction to biological engineering design, systems microbiology, computation for biological engineers and molecular principles of biomaterials. Materials are at both the undergraduate and graduate school levels. OpenCourseWare is free educational material online. Video lectures, assignments and exams are included. No registration or enrollment is required to use the materials.

This course illustrates how knowledge and principles of biology, biochemistry, and engineering are integrated to create new products for societal benefit. It uses a case study format to examine recently developed products of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries: how a product evolves from initial idea, through patents, testing, evaluation, production, and marketing. Emphasizes scientific and engineering principles; the responsibility scientists, engineers, and business executives have for the consequences of their technology; and instruction and practice in written and oral communication. The topic focus of this class will vary from year to year. This version looks at inflammation underlying many diseases, specifically its role in cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

This course covers sensing and measurement for quantitative molecular/cell/tissue analysis, in terms of genetic, biochemical, and biophysical properties. Methods include light and fluorescence microscopies; electro-mechanical probes such as atomic force microscopy, laser and magnetic traps, and MEMS devices; and the application of statistics, probability and noise analysis to experimental data.

In this course problems from biological engineering are used to develop structured computer programming skills and explore the theory and practice of complex systems design and construction.