2009 Courses & Clusters
Engineering plays an increasingly important role in medicine in projects that range from basic research in physiology to advances in biotechnology and the improvement of health care. Bioengineering, one of the youngest engineering disciplines, employs the principles and tools of traditional engineering fields, such as mechanical, structural, material, electrical, and chemical engineering to solve biomedical problems. This course shows how to produce useful engineering structures which are motivated by biological systems, such as the red blood cell.
Just about everyone knows that we can't live without blood. Without blood, our organs couldn't get the oxygen and nutrients they need to survive, we couldn't keep warm or cool off, we couldn't fight infections, and we couldn't get rid of our own waste products. How exactly does blood do these things? Blood cells facilitate the blood functions. Red Blood Cells are the most numerous cells in the blood and are responsible for the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Studying the membrane structure is important in order to understand how Red Blood Cells do their jobs. Students will learn the theory behind molecular and cell biology techniques and will use these techniques to answer basic questions in Red Blood Cell biology. Students will also explore the deformability of Red Blood Cells and its relationship with health and disease.
In the first part of this cluster, we will explore how bioengineering can be used to study the structure and function of the Red Blood Cells and their membranes. In the second part of this cluster, we will explore how mechanical engineering can help us model the red blood cell membrane structure. Motivated by the mechanical structure of the membrane materials of the red blood cell, we will show how to construct engineering models from sticks and strings (we call such structures tensegrity structures). Building several models of tensegrity structures will give some understanding how one might build efficient, and even deformable, engineering structures, which are motivated by biological systems.
Lectures will be complemented with interactive labs in which each team of students must solve a challenge proposed by the instructor.
Prerequisite:
One year of biology.
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