Tired of hearing the prefix “nano” attached to anything small, regardless of whether it’s actually 100 nm or less in size? Me, too, but I don’t expect nano to go the way of the dodo any time soon.
You may also feel the same way about the moniker “bio”, which seems to be similarly beaten to death in today’s categorically diverse research environment. Given the way it’s tossed around (biomaterials, bionics, biomechanics), it’s no wonder there’s some confusion about what someone actually does when she says she is an expert in bioengineering.
As I’ve recently learned, there are distinctions between this field and another related field of study, biological engineering. The former, according to a definition established by the National Institute of Health’s Bioengineering Consortium way back in 1997, covers a broad range of scientific study, being “rooted in physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, and the life sciences. It is the application of a systematic, quantitative, and integrative way of thinking about and approaching the solutions of problems important to biology, medical research, clinical proactive, and population studies.”
Biological engineering, however, is a bit more focused. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it is the “discipline of using engineering principles and quantitative measurements to be able to both understand and engineer biological systems and molecules.” This is in contrast, in turn, to biomedical engineering, which is the “application of traditional engineering disciplines to medical problems without any necessary grounding in molecular life sciences.”
Confused? Well, me, too, a little bit. But that’s not that important. What is important is that MIT, which formed a Dept. of Biological Engineering in 1998 is about to, in 2008, present 24 students with biological engineering degrees, the first new bachelor’s certificates at the school in 29 years. And I think there’s a good chance the work these students do will impact our lives profoundly enough to clear up any confusion about “bio” this or “bio” that.
