Biological Engineering
Biological engineering (also biosystems engineering and bioengineering) deals with engineering biological processes in general. It is a broad-based engineering discipline that also may involve product design, sustainability and analysis of biological systems. In other words, Bioengineering is a discipline that applies engineering principles to biological systems for the purpose of developing new technologies of services to improve the living standards of societies. It exploits the new developments in molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, cell metabolism and engineering principles and applies them in order to understand living systems and to bring solutions various problems associated with these systems.

Bioengineering employs the knowledge and expertise in a number of pure and applied sciences such as; mass and heat transfer, kinetics, biocatalysis, biomechanics, separation, and purification processes, bioreactor design, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and polymer science which constitute the fundamentals of engineering and couples it with knowledge in biological sciences such as genetics, molecular biology, protein chemistry, cytology, neurobiology, immunology and pharmacology, aiming to solve the different problems of the various sectors of the modern societies.

Because other engineering disciplines overlap bioengineering living organisms (e.g., prosthetics in mechanical engineering), the term can be applied more broadly to include food engineering and biotechnology. Biological engineering is called Bioengineering by some colleges and Biomedical engineering is called Bioengineering by others, and is a rapidly developing field with fluid categorization. However, the Main Fields of Bioengineering may be categorised as:

  • Bioprocess Engineering; Bioprocess Design, Biocatalysis, Bioseparation.
  • Genetic Engineering; Cell Engineering, Tissue Culture Engineering.
  • Biomedical Engineering; Biomedical Diagnosis, Biomedical Therapy, Biomechanics, Biomaterials.
  • Generally, bioengineering may deal with either the medical (see biomedical engineering) or the agricultural fields (see agricultural engineering).

Biological engineers are similar to biologists in that they study living organisms. They are engineers because they have a practical design aim in mind - they use research to create usable tangible products. In general, biological engineers attempt to,

  • Mimic biological systems in order to create products.
  • Modify and control biological systems so that they can replace, augment, or sustain chemical and mechanical processes.