The Biology Revolution

Over the last century, engineering advances have brought us incredible marvels of transportation, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, and agriculture; essentially, the modern world as we know it. However, it has been driven in unsustainable means, leading to incredible levels of pollution, global warming, world hunger, and skyrocketing healthcare costs. But we are at a new juncture in our understanding of biology and the technological tools now available to us. Just as chemists used engineering principles to create chemical engineering, a natural means to accelerate re-gaining an alignment with nature would be to engineer biology. In short, this kind of bioengineering research can lead to processes and products where biology itself has been designed through engineering principles: bacteria engineered to produce chemicals; engineered organs to replace faulty ones; novel diagnostic modalities; the ability to engineer cells as if they were machines. What are the impacts if incorporating these new technologies and technological modalities? What is the ultimate impact to our society and planet if we truly begin to engineer biology? And what is the cost of *not* doing so? This course will examine what engineering biology actually means; consider case studies of what kind of products, companies and innovations are already resulting from this new discipline and approach, from street lights made of luciferous trees to creating `clean¿ meat in the lab to engineering the immune system to fight cancer; and discuss what kind of systemic shifts will be required to make this happen in terms of politics, economics, and science.