Evolving Engineering
by Rob Campbell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob10campbell/)
Bioengineering is a growing field where researchers try to combine knowledge of medicine, biology, and design to create or modify parts of biology. There’s also another type of biological engineering that also draws on zoology, botany, and ecology, called bio-inspired engineering.
Engineers have been inspired by biology more or less since engineering began. Famous inventors like Leonardo da Vinci studied both mechanics and anatomy long before the modern fields of biomechanics and bioengineering were a thing.
Leonardo Di Vinci, Designs for a flying machine inspired by the structure of a bird wing (1488)
In recent years, new technologies like next generation DNA and RNA sequencing, advanced x-ray imaging, 3D printing, and computational modeling allow researchers to take bio-inspiration down to the micro, nano, and atomic level. There are now many “new” areas of research with the word biology in their name — biomechanics, biomaterials, biophysics, etc. The definitions of these fields vary, but they all connect to molecular biology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology, and increasingly draw inspiration from bacteria, fungi, animals, and plants.
Some examples of new research in bio-inspired engineering: studying how squid’s cells produce and assemble proteins into complex lenses in their eyes1, modifying bacteria to produce spider silk proteins so researchers can study how silk fibers are spun2, and comparing the structure of different nut shells to study the evolution of seeds and how to design strong materials3.
Learning from biology is exciting because biology builds things that human engineers can’t: things that heal on their own when wounded, are made using water and air instead of dangerous chemicals, and structures with complex repeating patterns of atoms and molecules. Many successful physical scientists have started moving from their original fields (like theoretical physics, statistics, or civil engineering) to start new careers studying how biology works. Because these researchers are not biologists, what the field really needs next is more biologists who want to work with them. So if you love biology, don’t stop at making superheroes ! When it comes to robots, spaceships, power supplies, supercomputers, and eco-friendly packaging, biology will be a big part of the future of engineering!
1 Campbell, R. (2020) “Squid reveal the secret to a ‘perfect’ lens “ Softbites.org
2 Malay, A.D., et.al. (2020) “Spider silk self-assembly via modular liquid-liquid
phase separation and nanofibrillation “ Science Advances, 6, 45, eabb6030
3 Huss, J.C. et.al. (2020) “Topological Interlocking and Geometric Stiffening as Complementary Strategies for Strong Plant Shells “ Advanced Materials, 32, 48, 202004519
Originally published at https://thedarwinmonkey.wixsite.com on April 19, 2021.