Biological Engineering

Biological engineering, also called bioengineering, applies the principles of biology together with the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible products and processes, working across scales from molecular biology and biochemistry up through cells and tissues to whole organisms and even ecosystems. Biological engineers aim to mimic biological systems or to modify and control them using conventional engineering method, drawing together biomechanics, bioinformatics, thermodynamics, polymer science and tissue engineering into one working discipline. The field is broader than biomedical engineering, which the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology scopes specifically to healthcare applications: biological engineering's own major branches, tissue engineering, pharmaceutical and bioprocess engineering, environmental health engineering, biotechnology, biomimetics and systems biology among them, extend well past medicine into agriculture, environmental treatment and industrial production. That breadth is what separates biological engineering from a single applied specialty: it is the general engineering discipline built on biology, of which medical application is only one branch among several.