BioEngineering Research Initiative
The BioEngineering Research Initiative is conceived as a platform to facilitate interdisciplinary interactions between biologists, physicists, engineers, material scientists and medical doctors. The structure of the collaboration revolves around a core group of faculty who facilitate interactions with colleagues in other research and academic institutions. The National Insitute of Health, USA has adopted the following definition: BioEngineering integrates physical, chemical, or mathematical sciences and engineering principles for the study of biology, medicine, behavior, or health. It advances fundamental concepts, creates knowledge for the molecular to the organ systems levels, and develops innovative biologics, materials, processes, implants, devices, and informatics approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, for patient rehabilitation, and for improving health.
Areas of Research
Under this initiative, we will consider
- the application of engineering sciences to understand the roles of biological molecules
- the application of engineering technologies to address important biological problems
Researchers with expertise in materials engineering, microelectronics, signal and image processing, microfluids, micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS, NEMS) will find problems that challenge their expertise even as a biologist helps improve our basic understanding of the natural world.
The broad areas of research under current consideration are
- Materials Science
- Tissue engineering
- Materials & biomaterials
- Cellular and molecular engineering
- Neural circuit engineering
- Bio-photonics
- Microfluidics
- Biological movements and forces
There is some funding available for research in these areas. At this stage, we are not considering proposals in translational medicine or bio-informatics.