Research & resources

Chemical and life science engineering students will gain exposure to cutting-edge research practiced by faculty members and peers. Funding comes from public and private sector entities, and sponsored research areas include specialties in both life science engineering and chemical engineering.

Life science engineering

Life science engineering concerns the application of engineering principles and practices to living organisms and is used in areas such as stem cell engineering, biochips and biosensors, and molecular biocomputing.

Biological systems engineering generally describes the quantitative analysis of the interactions of various subunits within a particular biological system. Typically, the term “systems biology” describes the complex interactions of subcellular components that work in concert to accomplish broad cellular tasks. As these events are both temporally and spatially dependent, an engineering systems approach based on dynamic pathway modeling is key to understanding overall cellular behavior. The complex nature of intracellular interactions requires a number of different technologies, such as microarrays, computers and computations, high throughput, and automation, to name a few.

Biomolecular engineering involves the purposeful manipulation of cells and the biological molecules they contain and produce in order to solve a particular problem or accomplish a particular task. It requires an understanding of how such cells go about the differentiation process in the making of an organism. Biomolecular engineering works on a wide range of situations, from diseases and disorders to large-scale production of drugs and biochemical compounds.

Cellular engineering includes many evolving fields such as protein engineering, genetic engineering, DNA microarray fabrication, tissue engineering, stem cell engineering and biosensors.

Environmental life science engineering is the unique application of engineering principles to the field of environmental life sciences, such as genetically modifying microorganisms for the treatment of waste, developing environmentally friendly materials that will not be adverse to life and life processes and applying biomaterials in the treatment of pollution.

Chemical engineering

Chemical engineering concerns the development and production of chemicals for applications of broad use to humanity. Chemical engineers not only work closely with synthetic chemists and biochemists to design new molecules that eventually reach the consuming public as new and improved products, they also are responsible for designing and operating the process facilities that convert chemicals into the multitude of commodity and specialty products and materials in use today. These materials include semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, nanostructured materials, cosmetics, petrochemicals and plastics, wood products and papers.