Biotechnology and Biosystems Engineering

Faculty: DaSilva, Grant, George, Hong, Lim, Putnam, Venugopalan, Wang

Advances in biological science have resulted in major innovations in biotechnology. The biotechnology industry requires engineers with solid foundations in both chemical engineering and the life sciences capable of harnessing these fundamental advances for a variety of applications. Chemical engineering thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, and chemical kinetics are fruitful tools for exploring biological systems, which are applied to producing specialized proteins, genetic modification of cells, tissue generation, purification of product molecules, and control strategies for complex biochemical plants.

The graduate program in Biochemical Engineering at UC Irvine introduces students to achievements made in biotechnology and stimulates them to analyze basic scientific and engineering principles through organized and individualized curricula and research. Current biochemical engineering research is directed at molecular level processes, the cell, tissues, the organism, and large-scale manufacturing in biochemical processes. Our department has extensive expertise in cloned gene expression, gene amplification and integration, metabolic engineering, bioseparation processes (including membrane and chromatographic separation), protein crystallization, bioreaction and bioreactor engineering, modeling, optimization and control of bioreactors, cell and tissue engineering, the biology and physiology of the human lung as an integrated, whole organ, wound healing and tissue remodeling. These diverse research areas have significant overlap with our other thrust research areas, but are all unified by the fundamental tools of biotechnology combined with the ability to analyze biological systems.