Chemical & Biochemical
Engineering
Third
Annual
Lumpkin
Memorial
Lecture
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JANICE
ANTOINE LUMPKIN
MEMORIAL LECTURE April 10, 2000 at 1:00 PM
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Molecular Cell Biology as a Foundation for the New Bioengineering
Douglas A. Lauffenburger
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAbstract:
Advances in basic biology at the molecular and cellular levels during recent decades have dramatically increased the foundational information available on mechanistic underpinnings of biological systems. Indeed, the genomics revolution has accelerated the pace at which reductionist data is being generated. It is widely agreed that a crucial challenge for the coming decades is how to integrate information from the genomic level to higher levels of system organization, for both fundamental scientific understanding and development of innovative biotechnologies. As engineering disciplines are predicated on the complementary principles of analysis and synthesis, combining to elucidate quantitative "design principles" for the dependence of system behavior on component properties. The "measurement, modeling, and manipulation" approach that has characterized engineering disciplines based on the sciences of physics and chemistry is now finding biology accessible and amenable as well. Thus, a new discipline of bioengineering is emerging, directed toward analysis of biological systems in terms of key component properties and consequently toward synthesis of technologies that can beneficially modify and control such systems.
Previous Speakers in this Lecture Series:
1999 Professor Daniel I.C. Wang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology1998 Professor Arthur Humphrey
Pennsylvania State University
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