Increased focus on biology in new CE dept

After more than a century of training students for the chemical industry, the Chemical Engineering department will infuse biology courses into its undergraduate program in response to the industry's changing nature. The department has changed its name to Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE), the first at any US university to do so, according to its website.

The changes are to "meet the demands" of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, which need chemical engineers who are familiar with biology, department chair Professor Gregory Botsaris said. Engineers with knowledge of biological systems would be indispensable in the large-scale production of chemicals via biological systems, a burgeoning field, he said.

These changes were in the works long before the formal renaming of the department. Past changes to the undergraduate curriculum have allowed chemical engineering students to pursue an interest in biology. For example, the natural science distribution requirement has allowed many students to take a course in introductory biology.

Recently, the University introduced a second major in biotechnology, which added biology courses to the repertoire of many chemical engineers. Just under one third of this year's graduating chemical engineers _ of which there are twenty-seven _ plan to graduate with a second major in biotechnology.

Additionally, many chemical engineers have chosen to work on senior projects that relate to biology. This initiative on the part of students may indicate their appreciation for the corporate demand for chemical engineers with an understanding of biology, Director of the Biotechnology Center Professor David Kaplan said.

In the future, the chemical engineering program will modify its curriculum by adding a mandatory introductory biology course, eliminating one elective course requirement. The department also plans to require a course in biochemistry.

Future junior-year lab work may also reflect the push to include biological processes in the engineering experience. Proposed laboratory investigations include performing polymerization reactions using biological enzymes as catalysts, as well as traditional chemical methods. These labs would compare the characteristics of the traditional reactions to those in which biological systems and enzymes are employed.

In another lab, students would compare the chemical production of alcohol to the fermentation reaction, in which bacteria produces the same substance. Students might also compare the solar energy-harvesting capacity of photovoltaic cells, a traditional chemical apparatus, to plant photosynthesis.

"Remember, the same things happen on the cell membrane that happen in the large-scale [chemical] plant," Professor Maria Flytzani-Stephanopoulos said.

The CBE department is also effecting faculty changes in a further attempt to "seamlessly integrate" the disciplines of biology and chemical engineering, Botsaris said. The recent hiring of Professor Kuong Bum Lee, whose research interests include metabolic process engineering, will offer chemical engineering students interested in biology-oriented research a new option. Professor Lee has quantitatively studied the response of the liver to burn injury.

A search for a permanent department chair is also underway. Since CBE is seeking both an experienced senior-faculty member and the expansion of the department, it will search outside Tufts for a new "faculty member who will also act as department chair," according to Flytzani-Stephanopoulos. Interviews have not yet begun for this position.

Chemical engineering as a discipline dates back to the turn of the century, when new systems were introduced that converted chemical energy into mechanical energy, Botsaris said. Tufts was among the first institutions to offer a separate chemical engineering degree, following the example of MIT.

Chemical engineers have been described as "universal engineers," responsible for everything from agricultural improvements to the refining of petroleum.

Many colleges and universities are beginning to see the need to combine biology with the "powerful paradigm" of chemical engineering, Botsaris said. Cornell University and the universities of Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Houston plan to follow suit and change the names of their chemical engineering degrees to reflect the influence of biology.