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Carl F. Lund is professor and chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
The Department of Chemical Engineering has changed its name to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Why the name change?
We believe that changing our department's name to the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering will benefit the department, the school and the university. It is consistent with trends in the profession and at UB. We believe it will foster even greater interdisciplinary interactions between engineering, medicine, the health sciences, chemical sciences and biological sciences. We also believe it will help in the recruitment of both faculty and graduate students. The new name does not represent a new initiative; rather, it more accurately describes what our department already is and what it already does. After seriously studying the possibilities and after discussing the issue at faculty meetings throughout the past academic year, the faculty met last May for a final discussion of the matter. At that time we voted unanimously in favor of this change.
How did you begin the process of determining whether a name change was appropriate?
Our deliberations in this matter began with a consideration of the chemical engineering profession in general and of academic chemical engineering departments in the United States in particular. The clear picture that emerges is one of diversification, primarily into the biochemical, biomedical and bioengineering areas. Indeed, many "chemical engineering" departments have are or are considering changing their names to match the diversification of their research and curricular portfolios, and companies like Dupont now have research programs in the biological sciences that are comparable to their activities in the chemical sciences. Prominent chemical engineering departments that recently have changed their names to include some aspect of biological or biomolecular engineering include Cornell, Illinois, Penn, Johns Hopkins, Wisconsin, Missouri and Tufts, and it appears from conversations I've had that many more are considering similar changes. A series of conferences for chemical engineering department heads has taken place with the sole objective of curricular reform in the bio area.
What is the focus of chemical engineering?
The success of the chemical engineering profession lies in its fundamental approach to the analysis of systems involving chemical reaction, separation and other processing. Chemical engineers long ago developed an approach wherein complex processes are described in terms of fundamental chemical process building blocks called unit operations. Armed with a sound understanding of the unit operations, one can use them to describe and model widely disparate chemical processes ranging from the refining of crude oil to the production of margarine. Additionally, chemical engineers apply these principles at every size scale, from atomic to global.
How have changes in the field affected the way chemical engineers are trained?
In any good chemical engineering department today, including ours, you will find research being conducted that ranges in scale from full-sized chemical plants to quantum chemical modeling at the molecular level. The chemical industry is maturing, and while a need for these skills will persist, it is anticipated that more growth will occur in the biochemical and biomedical sectors. As new drugs are discovered, or artificial skin is perfected, or other biological breakthroughs are made, the methods of chemical engineering will be perfectly suited to the development of processes for their commercial production, just as they were ideally suited to the development of plastics and synthetic fertilizers during the past century. But there's much more. Just as chemical-engineering analysis proved vital to the understanding of complex organic and physical chemical systems, many expect that a quantitative, mathematical, chemical-engineering approach ultimately will prove most effective for "systems biology"-the modeling and manipulation of complex, biological systems, such as individual cells, tissues, organs and so on.
How does this apply specifically to UB?
UB faces a strategic need to increase the amount of biological and biomedical activity taking place within SEAS. The university is adding tremendous and exciting capabilities in bioinformatics, drug design and discovery, etc. Sound and strong biological engineering is a necessary complement to these areas. It can contribute in numerous ways toward a deeper understanding, as well as in moving fundamental science to commercial reality. Our department already enjoys strong and fruitful collaboration in bio-related areas with several departments and centers at UB, including some adjunct appointments. We envision a growing number of these kinds of interactions, and we would hope to additionally explore possibilities for jointly hiring faculty with other departments in relevant areas.
What are some of the department's other strengths in this regard?
We have a National Medal of Science recipient on our faculty who also is one of the most distinguished members of the profession. While Eli Ruckenstein's activities cover a broad spectrum, he has worked for years in areas like protein separation and adhesion. We enjoy two recently-promoted faculty members whose programs are rapidly increasing in national stature. Sririm Neelamegham and Stelios Andreadis have established large, active, research groups in the areas of human inflammation and thrombosis, and tissue engineering and retroviral gene therapy, respectively. They have secured support from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Whitaker Foundation and American Heart Association, among other sources. Mattheos Koffas, with research interests in proteomics and genomics related to metabolic pathways, joined our program in the fall of 2002 following postdoctoral studies at Dupont, and Manolis Tzanakakis, who currently is involved in stem cell research as a postdoc, has just joined our department this semester. Thus, unlike many other chemical engineering departments nationally, we already have an excellent core group in the area from which to build. In addition, a large fraction of our "non-bio" faculty actually are involved in projects that fall under the purview of biological engineering: Johannes Nitsche, in collaboration with Bruce Nicholson and others, studies transport through intercellular pores; Mark Swihart and Triantafillos Mountziaris are synthesizing nanoparticles to be tagged with biologically active ligands and used as tracers within organisms; Paschalis Alexandridis is involved in development of bio-compatible materials for contact lenses, among other projects, and David Kofke and Jeffrey Errington are involved in molecular simulation, aspects of which can be applied directly to biological systems. My own research in catalytic oxygen activation seeks to find chemical analogs to enzymes like methane monooxygenase.
Where does the department's current curriculum fit into the mix?
Our curriculum has been evolving to include biological engineering in ever-increasing amounts. New degree programs eventually may emerge, but this is not immediately necessary. The chemical engineering curriculum is sufficiently broad to encompass many of the necessary biological components within the existing framework. This summer, SEAS plans to initiate the paperwork to establish bioengineering degrees at the master's and doctoral levels, and our department will play a central role in that process and in those programs. We already offer courses in biochemical engineering, tissue engineering and metabolic engineering. Topics like reactor design for biological reactions, for example, already are incorporated into our existing curriculum.
How will the name change assist in the recruiting of graduate students?
We find that the vast majority of graduate student applicants to our program are interested in bio-related projects. It is quite possible that many very qualified individuals do not apply to the program because they are unaware of the bio-related activities that are available. Indeed, one of our own undergraduates this past year did not apply initially to UB for graduate school because she wanted to study bioengineering. I'm happy to say that after learning about our program and SEAS' intention to initiate graduate bioengineering degree programs, she accepted our offer of admission for graduate study. In this manner, we believe the name change will improve our graduate recruiting.