Harvard University Bioengineering

Engineering Biology for the 21st Century

A Plan for Bioengineering at Harvard

INTRODUCTION: BROAD VISION

Biology increasingly offers inspiration for engineering: living systems are robust to
changing environments, can produce materials and structures that are far outside the current
scope of nanotechnology, efficiently capture energy directly from the sun, transform pollutants
into innocuous substances, and self-organize in many non-trivial ways. At the same time, ideas
and tools embodied in physical and computer sciences are being brought to bear upon important
challenges in biology, and engineering can provide a formal platform by which to bring rigor and
quantification to physiology and medicine. There is enormous potential for the transformation of
bioengineering into a discipline directed toward synthesis of technologies that can have profound
impact on human well-being and the future of the planet. Bioengineering is also an exciting,
deeply interdisciplinary, intellectual area that naturally integrates physical, life and information
sciences. The absence of a defined Program in Bioengineering at Harvard deprives numerous
students of a formal curriculum in this area, marginalizes the University in one of the major
growth areas in science and health policy and limits the development of the discipline. The
committee (see Appendix 1) heard of the demand to create a Bioengineering Program from
students, fellows and faculty and strongly and unanimously endorsed the foundation of research
and education initiatives in bioengineering.

Harvard has a unique opportunity to create a program that will define bioengineering for
st
the 21 century. We envision the Harvard University Bioengineering initiative to become a hub
and a worldwide focal point of pedagogy and collaborative and translational research of life
scientists and engineers working together. The University will bring together its schools of
engineering, medicine, law, business and public healthcare and policy, to create a unique
interschool bioengineering program. Such a program will lead to fundamental advances in
biology, medicine and biomimetic engineering and could have an enormous impact on the well-
being of the planet and the nation's economic competitiveness. Societal problems that may only
be finally solved through bioengineering include an effective approach to bioenergy, using
photosynthesis to directly capture and store energy in useable forms; purification of water and
land using plants and microbes to detoxify compromised sources, new approaches to increasing
the food supply and more powerful, cheaper and globally enabled healthcare. Major intellectual
threads include abstracting concepts of life to use in non-living systems, and applying
engineering concepts to the design of living systems, the question of what actually constitutes
life, the creation of functional hybrids between living and non-living systems, and the re-
conceptualization of biology as an information science (Fig. 1).

1
 Health and
Biomimetics and Medicine
Tools for Research,
Bio-inspired
Treatment and
Engineering and
Diagnostics
Robotocs

Bioinformatics and Agriculture and

Biocomputing Food Supply

HUB
Alternative and
Stem Cell
Renewable
Research
Energy

Sensors and Bioengineering

Biodefense and Climate

Bioremediation

Figure 1. Bioengineering impact areas

The Harvard University Bioengineering Program would be:

1. A point of intellectual integration for engineering, medicine, molecular biology,

chemistry, synthetic biology, bio-energy, systems biology, stem cell research and
biological computation
2. An environment in which faculty can work as part of teams on large-scale projects that
cannot be tackled by single labs
3. A place where students are challenged with new opportunities and interdisciplinary
training, rather than being tunneled into a narrow specialty
4. A venue for the development of new technologies and the expanded use of emerging
technologies in science
5. A nidus around which technology can be made available to a broad community of
scholars and scientists
6. A starting point for commercial ventures and industrial connections
7. A place where Harvard's unique breadth and depth of expertise in medicine, biology,
engineering, the physical sciences, public policy, law, economics and business would
find full expression in an integrated multidisciplinary approach to a broad and centrally
important topic.

2
WHY NOW? THE NEED

The global and societal need.

The major challenges surrounding human health and the welfare of the planet will be the
focus of much of this century. The future presents unprecedented opportunities in the area of
bioengineering, which could lead to enormous advances of potential societal and economic
value. Research in biomolecular materials and processes has already yielded rich economic
dividends. For example, annual U.S. sales of drug-delivery vehicles alone are projected to reach
$48 billion in 2007. Advances in the science and engineering associated with biomolecular
processes and medicine will aid the nation's progress in many areas including healthcare cost
reduction, preventive/anticipatory medicine, energy independence, delivery of improved medical
therapeutics, and the creation of reliable sensors to detect biological and chemical threats. The
nation’s economic competitiveness and well-being demand vigorous pursuit of research and
education in bioengineering.

The discipline and scientific need.

Life sciences have reached a turning point. A large number of basic mechanisms have
been discovered, and the essential mystery of life has been stripped away by the last 50 years of
molecular biology. But this tremendous progress has now led us to an understanding of just how
complex biology really is. Biology now needs large infusions of conceptual and quantitative
approaches from information science and the physical sciences. Biology needs to be converted
into a rigorous, predictive science through computation, theory, and model building, and into a
field that is truly useful to society, through engineering. Chemistry went through a similar
transition – at a certain point, the basic mechanisms of chemistry were explained in terms of
quantum mechanics. To stay vibrant, chemistry became more applied and interfaced with other
disciplines such as materials science and biochemistry. Biology is only now ready for deep
engagement with engineering.
Engineering and physical sciences are, in turn, longing for new challenges. The first
generation of biomedical engineering has yielded revolutionary advances, including new
imaging modalities, prosthetic devices, dialysis, and drug delivery systems, and this field is
poised to tackle increasingly complex and sophisticated problems. Physical sciences have been
remarkably successful in developing approaches to understand and control the physical world.
However, despite substantial effort, these approaches have often not led to a rational framework
for important biological problems. There is much basic science to develop to fully harness the
potential of biology. In engineering, powerful new methods of nanoscale fabrication,
characterization, and simulation – using tools that were not available as little as five years ago –
are creating new opportunities for understanding, manipulating and mimicking biological
materials and processes; computer science is finding new ways to mimic and model biological
processes, and increasingly is giving biologists new ways to think about biology.
Multidisciplinary research at the interface between engineering, life and physical sciences is the
fastest growing area in the modern science presenting unique opportunities for scientific
discovery and development (see Fig. 2).

3
 Successfully addressing these opportunities and challenges represents one of the great
frontiers of the rapidly evolving field of bioengineering (see Fig. 3). The very strengths and
attractions of bioengineering present significant limitations and trials to those who seek to take it
forward. Like many emerging fields bioengineering has meant different things to different
people. Similarly, the many disciplines bioengineering embraces (see table) challenge the pursuit
of excellence in all domains. These restrictions have at times prevented rational development and
growth of bioengineering to its full potential. The Committee strongly believes that
bioengineering is the natural next step in the intellectual development of biology, medicine and
engineering; as an evolving discipline, it requires careful definition and leadership.

500
Engineering+biology
400 Computer+biology
Chemistry+biology
300
%

Physics+biology
200 Biology

100 Chemistry
Physics
0
1990-1995 1996-2001 2002-2007

years

Figure 2. Chart showing the number of papers published in collaboration between

departments of biology/medical schools and physical sciences/engineering as compared to
the number of papers published by single departments (ISI Science Database Search)

180 0
Bio-/nan o-
160 0 (nan obiolo gy,
na nom ed icine)
140 0
C om putational bio lo gy
120 0

100 0
Biological self-
%

80 0 ass em bly

60 0 B iom im e tics

40 0 Sys tem s b iology

Ph ysica l biology
20 0
Ge neral bio lo gy
0 (c hem istry, phys ics)
199 0-199 5 1 996 -2 001 20 02-200 7

y ears

Figure 3. Chart showing the increase in the number of papers published in the emerging
areas of interdisciplinary life, engineering and physical sciences compared to the number
of papers in individual disciplines (ISI Science Database Search)

4
 Table. Examples of Intellectual Sub-Disciplines of Bioengineering

Broad Intellectual
Examples1 Sample outcomes
Area
- improved, cheaper healthcare
- new modes for non-invasive diagnosis
- more powerful research tools
- new non-invasive therapies
- continuous lifetime monitoring
Engineering of new tools - novel materials, e.g. for drug delivery
- in vivo imaging at all scales
for medicine and biology - technology for nurses/paramedics/first
responders - autonomous, dynamic therapies that
monitor and respond to disease in real
- bioMEMS
time
- image analysis (whole body/cells)
- telemedicine

- cells that build computational chips

- bio-nanotechnology
- biological batteries
- bioenergy
Engineering using - viruses that target specific cancers
- bioremediation
genetics, molecular - genetics-enabled, patient-specific
- phage display and panning
biology and systems medicine
biology - live animal sensors
- biological factories for synthesis and
- engineered viruses and bacteria for assembly
sensing and therapeutics
- broadly compatible eye, pancreatic
islets, heart, kidney, etc.
- tissue engineering and regeneration
Engineering using cell - replacements for worn-out or damaged
- chimeric and transgenic animals organs
and developmental
biology, organismal - biomechanics - new vaccines for cancer and infectious
biology - engineering the immune system diseases
- 3D in vitro tissue models
- treatments for autoimmune diseases
- improved drug screening
- robotics and automation - robots that self-organize to
- bio-inspired materials and design automatically repair
- biomimetics - materials that adapt to circumstances
Biological inspiration for
- miniaturization and nanotechnology - materials and devices that evolve
engineering and
- self-assembling structures and devices - multifunctional materials
technology
- responsive materials - energy harvesting and storage devices
- complexity and emergent behavior - environmentally friendly chemical
processing
- computers with immune systems
- computational biology - bio-inspired robustness and adaptation
- bio- and medical informatics in computer operating systems
- bio-inspired agent-based or rule-based - neural networks
Quantitative biology
computing approaches - rationally-designed targets for disease
- non-linear, dynamic phenomena intervention
- virtual models of cells, organs, and
humans
1
The more detailed list of areas considered by the Committee is presented in Appendix 2.

Harvard University need.

Harvard’s intellectual and educational leadership in modern science is largely impossible
without a substantial effort in bioengineering. Given that this is Harvard, there is a communal
and global responsibility to continue the development of the bioengineering discipline not only
within the university but also outside, and to use it to benefit society. Fully addressing these
goals will involve academia, industry (nascent and existing), healthcare policy, regulation, law
and global health.

5
 The synergistic development and application of approaches that have traditionally been
confined to either engineering, life, physical or medical sciences within the boundaries of SEAS,
FAS or HMS are already emerging organically at Harvard. A range of Harvard University assets
have contributed greatly to biomedical sciences. Molecular biology began in large part at
Harvard. The Harvard School of Public Health has made major contributions to international
health and public policy. Imaging sciences thrive in Harvard-affiliated hospitals. The Department
of Systems Biology at the Medical School and the Bauer Center at the FAS are setting new
standards for computational and quantitative biology. Faculty associated with Health Sciences
and Technology (HST) have contributed to advances in biomedical engineering and teaching to
date. The Broad Institute is a new paradigm in research organization and financing. Chemical
biology, neuroscience, biophysics and systems biology have all developed cross-School efforts.
The Department of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine is the first Department to be explicitly
shared between two Schools. Yet, there has not been an overarching program at a University-
wide level to provide core strength in bioengineering. The advances are at the rudimentary stage
and there is much to be done to ensure that the beneficial progress in removing institutional
barriers continues. These and other like programs can be leveraged to build even greater internal
strength in the bioengineering domain. Moreover, each of these University initiatives and
resources would be strengthened greatly by a sound and secure program in bioengineering.
In this sense, investing in bioengineering is an enormous opportunity to contribute to the
field in general, fill internal voids and strengthen existing programs. But the changing nature of
this field leads to the situation that no single Harvard program or school, be it HSEAS, HMS or
others, can mount a convincing effort in bioengineering alone. Together—by consolidating the
faculty and resources and by harnessing Harvard’s strengths (HMS & hospitals, HSEAS, FAS,
HSPH, HBS, and HLS)—we can conceive a new approach and definition of this discipline and
create a program that will lead the world in this important area. This is an opportunity for
Harvard to create a new structure that MUST cross School boundaries, and that will generate
enormous excitement for collaboration among the Schools to address major overarching
problems in human health and bio-inspired technologies.

Educational need.
Bioengineering is becoming extremely popular with students from many different
backgrounds. The potential of bioengineering to bring together disparate subjects of biology and
engineering and, literally, to change the world will most definitely engage the excitement and
passion of Harvard undergraduates. We have already had considerable experience of this with
the success of programs like iGEM and the medically-focused HST program. The number of
undergraduate and graduate students interested in bioengineering is growing exponentially. This
tendency creates a substantial, and largely unsatisfied, demand for a specialized program in
bioengineering. The student population interested in bioengineering is highly diverse, as is the
discipline itself. Yet, it should be recognized that the Harvard student is unique, not by virtue of
drive, accomplishment or intelligence but by perspective and insight. It is critical to develop a
new, robust but rigorous program and qualification criteria that revolutionize multidisciplinary
teaching and respond to the specific and distinctive needs of Harvard students. There must be
sufficient faculty and resources to meet all advisory, supervisory and mentoring needs of the
student body. To address this growing student-driven need, the university has a responsibility to
create a structure to support the educational diversity associated with the bioengineering

6
discipline and to facilitate curriculum development to train the next generation of Harvard
students.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES

A key issue in establishing a bioengineering program at Harvard is to decide what the

program is to accomplish. The field is, in principle, so broad that without a focused set of goals it
could fail to develop as a coherent intellectual effort. This has been a particularly difficult issue
for the Committee, and the focus of much discussion. There are many extremely attractive areas
within bioengineering, and each member of the Committee might choose a different set of
possibilities as the most exciting areas to focus on. In the end, the Committee concluded that the
choice of focus areas should not be the primary issue at this stage. What is important is to define
a scale of operations and a process for identifying a leader. In thinking about the scale of
operations that is required, it is worth considering what a bioengineering effort will need to
achieve:

1. Make Harvard a leader in bioengineering, by creating a truly cohesive, interdisciplinary

program that bridges HSEAS, HMS and the Harvard-affiliated hospitals
2. Develop a new academic discipline and curricula at both the graduate and undergraduate
level that would be a model for other Universities
3. Solve important, fundamental scientific problems related to the basic principles of
biological design and function through the integration of technical innovation within
society
4. Apply this knowledge to
a. Innovative medicine through engineering
b. Innovative engineering through biological inspiration
c. Global-scale problems in energy, water, environment, and sustainability
d. Research tools to accelerate the development of new understanding of biological
phenomena
5. Generate a new type of student able to integrate knowledge in life, physical, and
information sciences, and to apply the resulting understanding to the solution of global
problems, and to the solution of grand-scale intellectual challenges
6. Create jobs and companies

Creating a leading program in bioengineering and forging the next generation of this
evolving academic discipline are both goals that indicate the need for major new resources, and
strong leadership. The committee recommends that Harvard should launch an international
search for a senior figure in bioengineering immediately, and shape the resources, goals, and
organizational structure for bioengineering around the leader who is identified as a result of the
search. We should recognize that the resources required will be on a scale at least commensurate
with starting a new Department—although many organizational models are possible (see below).

7
RECOMMENDATIONS

General recommendations.

Recommendation #1. Create a new inter-school program – Harvard University

Bioengineering (HUB). Harvard has all the assets to make the HUB special: HMS & hospitals
house the world’s most renowned Medical School and biomedical research; the HSEAS’s unique
mission of “Engineering a Renaissance” laid the foundation for a highly innovative,
interdisciplinary engineering program rooted in the basic and applied sciences. However, the
Committee reiterated that neither SEAS nor HMS could mount a convincing effort in
bioengineering alone. By creating a new joint effort, we will be able to harness Harvard’s
strengths (primarily at HSEAS and HMS & hospitals, but also at FAS, HSPH, HBS, HLS, and
interschool programs like the Stem Cell, Broad Institutes and HST) in contributing to the
rationale, evolution and growth of the Bioengineering discipline. We will create a truly unique
Harvard program that will thrive on applied sciences, will integrate innovative medicine through
engineering with advanced engineering through biological inspiration and will lead the world in
this important area (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. Inter-school Harvard University Bioengineering program (HUB). 1st shell – core Schools; 2nd shell – other
participating Schools; 3rd shell – Institutes and Centers; 4th shell – educational components

8
Recommendation #2. Launch an international search for a leader for HUB. We recommend
the HUB be led by a Director, who will be hired as a result of an international search. The
Committee felt that this search should be given a high priority, as the new program of such
caliber, importance and complexity cannot succeed without dedicated governance. We
recommend that this search be initiated immediately, and led by the Deans of HSEAS and HMS.

Recommendation #3. Create an Inter-School Committee to build the Bioengineering

community. The Committee recommends that to maintain the momentum of these discussions,
an Inter-School Committee (ISC * ) on Bioengineering, reporting to the deans of SEAS and HMS,
should be immediately created and given resources and space. The Bioengineering ISC would
build on the efforts that have already started among existing Bioengineering faculty and create
new educational and research opportunities across HU’s schools of engineering, medicine, law,
business and public healthcare and policy. It should have resources including committed space
to establish needed cores and to catalyze the formation of interdisciplinary and inter-faculty
projects. The ISC will also engage and integrate into its structure the existing inter-faculty
efforts (HIBIE and Kavli) in this area. The Committee specially emphasized the synergistic
relationships between HIBIE and the Bioengineering ISC and recognized the importance of
integrating HIBIE into the broader bioengineering effort (HUB).

Recommendation #4. Set aside a minimum of 20 new faculty hires to build and grow the
Bioengineering effort. We envisage that these new hires should be made only after the Director
has been selected and an intellectual focus has been approved by the HSEAS and HMS Deans
and University leadership. The Committee strongly recommends many of these hires involve
cross-school appointments, in order to enhance the bridge-building between the different
participating units. Negotiations to transfer existing faculty to the new effort should also
commence after the vision is clear. The focus should be on strengthening Harvard’s effort by
making these new recruitments possible, rather than on rearranging existing faculty; however, if
senior leadership is available in a given intellectual area, some rearrangements may be important
to catalyze rapid progress. It is noted that the organizational structure of HSEAS does not
involve Departments, whereas the structure of HMS is built upon them. As the bioengineering
effort grows significantly in size, prominence and impact, a working group should be set up to
explore the structures of existing cross-Faculty initiatives (e.g. SCRB, MSI) and evaluate how
these models would support the goals of HUB. These findings should be discussed with the
Director, once identified, and a consideration should be given to the ISC transitioning into a new
Division or Inter-School Department with a subsequent further increase in faculty hires.

Recommendation #5. Create a central location that houses a critical mass of the
Bioengineering research and administrative functions. The Committee felt that Bioengineering
cannot be successful if it is distributed across campus with no central home or identity. The
central location is expected to be at the new Science 1 complex at the Allston campus.

*
The ISC will be created according to the recommendations of the University Planning Committee for Science
and Engineering (UPCSE) and Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC).

9
Educational recommendations.

Being at the interface between traditional engineering and life sciences, bioengineering
education faces an enormous challenge of combining the engineering and biological curricula in
a meaningful way and producing a robust program that develops a mindset of a bioengineer – an
engineer capable of tackling the society’s pressing problems related to healthcare,
preventive/anticipatory medicine, energy independence, or the creation of reliable sensors to
detect biological and chemical threats. The committee discussed educational issues and
alternatives that focus on teaching research concepts and research methods in bioengineering.
Two approaches were compared: (a) providing courses in the specific aspects of bioengineering
or (b) a formal degree-granting curriculum. The consensus was to support the latter at both the
undergraduate and graduate levels. The committee felt that these new activities should be
designed and implemented to further strengthen the important connection to clinical medicine
through HMS & hospitals, and to deepen the medical and non-medical aspects of the
biologically-inspired engineering program. The committee agreed that this is a place where
Harvard could have enormous impact. By starting anew, rather than simply cobbling existing
courses together, Harvard could create a cohesive bioengineering program. There was
considerable enthusiasm for this within the committee, and we believe the bioengineering
community will embrace this new teaching mission with gusto.

Recommendation #6: Create a new undergraduate concentration in bioengineering.

This concentration should prepare students for the practice of bioengineering, and also provide
adequate preparation for graduate study in engineering, the sciences, and other professions. A
focused curriculum, with emphasis on mathematics that integrates a solid understanding of
engineering principles with quantitative thinking relevant to fundamental concepts in biology,
will be required to train engineers who can apply science and technology to society’s pressing
problems. The engineering techniques and biological problems should be taught together as
much as possible. Due to the current undergraduate teaching infrastructure in SEAS, and its
integration within FAS, it was felt that SEAS should take the lead role in the creation of an
undergraduate concentration. We anticipate that the core courses will be offered through the
HSEAS, but a variety of courses will be available through other departments in FAS and HMS
and the curriculum will be planned by a cross-faculty curriculum committee to reflect the
interdisciplinary nature of Bioengineering. Educational events involving law and policy faculty
will be included in the curriculum to motivate thoughtful discussions of social and ethical issues
related to scientific advances in bioengineering. In order to broaden and enrich the training, the
students will have an early immersion in research. It is critical to provide additional teaching
laboratory space, and new instructional and lab support staff and adequate resources.
Due to the breadth of the bioengineering field and the associated difficulty in preparing
students adequately in its fundamentals, we further recommend that consideration be given to
initially offering only a S.B. degree in this new concentration.

Recommendation #7: Develop a graduate curriculum in bioengineering. The committee

favored the creation of a new cross-school graduate program administered jointly by HMS and
SEAS, although some committee members thought students could also be served by expanding
and adapting existing cross-School graduate programs instead; both options may be possible.

10
Natural interfaces exist between the new program and the existing HST, Biophysics and Systems
Biology graduate programs, and the bioengineering program should coordinate its activities with
these programs to provide synergy, and avoid detracting from the mission and success of those
programs. Indeed, the new bioengineering program should be structured and implemented in a
manner that enhances the educational mission of HST and exploits this existing interface
between bioengineering and clinical medicine. In either case, we would aim to prepare students
for a career in research and/or teaching in academics or industry. A new graduate program
should be joint between HMS and SEAS, with both teaching responsibilities and research
opportunities distributed among the Harvard schools, hospitals and clinics. The program must
provide a balance of formal and laboratory-based engineering, biological, and medical training to
adequately prepare students both to be successful at this interface and to enable these students to
define the bioengineering field in the future. The graduate program should engage students early
in research, broaden exposure to the discipline through cross-school interactions, foster
leadership and mentoring skills, offer opportunities for outside internships, and — most of all —
provide an intellectually stimulating interdisciplinary research experience.

Next steps for education

It was understood that these recommendations will require significant further

programmatic definition. To address these challenges, the Committee recommends an immediate
creation of the Bioengineering Undergraduate and Graduate Planning Groups that will be
charged to define Bioengineering as a discipline at the undergraduate and graduate levels, to
identify specific coherent and consistent educational models and develop the curriculum for the
degree. Issues to be resolved include University approval of the number of students to be
admitted, how such students will be selected, the admissions processes, and curriculum
definition, delineation, evaluation and oversight. In addition, it is anticipated that the University
will insist on a description of the formal series of checks and balances and quality control for all
aspects of the undergraduate and graduate programs, including student mentoring, qualification
examination, and means to evaluate adherence to specific and general degree requirements. The
committee encourages involvement of the Directors of the graduate program in Systems Biology,
Biophysics, the medical and graduate programs of HST, and the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute (HHMI) programs in Translational Research (the HMS Leder and HST GEMS) in these
discussions.
The working groups should identify avenues to promote and sustain Harvard’s leading
position in providing the world’s best preparation in research. The specific recommendations
should address legislation, policy, research and practice and provide resources for enacting
prioritized choices for Deans, Faculty and Administrators. Critical opportunities for growth
should be identified as bioengineering emerges as a new discipline at Harvard with significant
prominence and impact.
Finally there was desire to coordinate all these educational initiatives so that they could
not only present a uniform face to the outside world (e.g. web-based information dissemination
to potential students) but also facilitate cataloguing and support of resources for education in the
field. Such an effort will serve current and potential students but also faculty, recruits and
leadership.

11
 The Committee believes that dramatic developments in engineering education and
research and lessons learned from bioengineering programs in other universities provide
significant leverage for addressing the major educational challenges we see in this area. The
Committee emphasized, however, that success will only be possible with University-wide
support, sustained effort, and funding.

TIMELINE
• Set up a search committee and initiate an international search for a Director of HUB (by
09/08)
• Appoint a group to develop an undergraduate and graduate bioengineering curriculum
(completion by 01/09)
• Appoint a group to continue planning, or continue the existing group, to work with the
relevant deans to produce a detailed plan for the ISC (01/09)
• Reach an initial agreement among the relevant deans concerning objectives, structure,
budget, staffing, space, and organization of the ISC (01/09)
• Create a group (including senior administrators as well as faculty) to evaluate existing
cross-School models (completion by 06/09)
• Recruit first bioengineering graduate students (09/09)
• Offer a curriculum to undergraduates (09/10).
Undergraduate
Start Director Evaluate cross- curriculum
search, 9/08 School models for launched
HUB, 06/09 First Ph.D. class Core HUB faculty move
enrolls to Allston,
Develop 9/10 late 2011
curricula, 1/09 Launch Ph.D.
program, 9/09

June ‘08 June ‘09 June ‘10 June ‘11

Produce detailed New Director hired, First new HUB

plans for ISC, Faculty recruitments faculty arrive,
1/09 begin (06/09-1/10) 9/10

Organization (green) Education (blue)

12
Appendix 1: Harvard University Bioengineering Planning Group

Joanna Aizenberg, Gordon McKay Professor of Materials Science; Professor of Chemistry

and Chemical Biology and Radcliffe Professor at Harvard University

Pamela Silver, Professor, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Elazer Edelman, Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and
Technology at MIT and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School

George M. Whitesides, Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers

David Mooney, Gordon McKay Professor of Bioengineering in the Harvard School of

Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University

Ralph Weissleder, MD, PhD, Professor, Harvard Medical School; Director, Center for
Molecular Imaging Research

13
Appendix 2: Areas considered by the committee as possible foci

Engineering Solves Problems:

1. Biomedical engineering
a. Healthcare cost reduction/Globalization
b. Preventive/anticipatory medicine
c. Personalized/patient-specific medicine
d. Non- and minimally invasive medicine
e. Sensing and quantitation
f. Emerging disease
g. “Urban Illness” (Drug/Alcohol/STD)
h. Healthy aging
i. Cognitive disease
2. Non-medical bioengineering
a. Bioenergy
b. Bio-inspired materials and robotics
c. Biosphere modeling
d. Bio and climate change
e. Water and biology
f. Bioremediation
g. Agriculture
h. Defense

More specific potential focus areas

1. Miniaturization/Nanotechnology
2. Biomaterials
3. Tools for research and treatment
4. Diagnostics
a. imaging at all scales
b. sensors
c. advanced diagnostics
d. molecular imaging in vivo (overcoming current limitations in depth of field;
kinetics)
5. Robotics/Automation
6. Biologically-inspired design
7. Materials for minimally invasive therapies
8. New modes for non-invasive therapy (electrical, magnetic)
9. Engineering the immune system (infectious disease, cancer, autoimmune disease,
transplantation)
10. Synthetic biology (building blocks and rules governing their assembly)
11. Programming cells in vivo
12. Autonomous, dynamic therapies (monitor and respond to disease in real time)
13. IT (from Google/Facebook to patient records to telemedicine)

14
14. Technology for nurses/paramedics/first-responders
15. How to integrate genetics: Patient-specific medicine
16. Continuous lifetime monitoring (d[biomarkers]/dt)
17. Cell/molecular engineering (cell mechanics)
18. Biocomputation (control theory, modeling, networks), computational biology and
bioinformatics
19. Drugs (delivery, drug market, overcome existing problems)
20. Tissue engineering
21. BioMEMS (microfluidics, sensors, detectors, implantables)
22. Toxicology
23. Bio-energy and metabolic engineering

15
Appendix 3: Charge

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Harvard Medical School and the
Faculty of Arts & Sciences are in the process of developing a joint program to enable
education and research in the broadly defined area of interdisciplinary bioengineering.

We are looking for a strategic plan regarding the establishment of this program. We
would like you to examine the educational and research opportunities in bioengineering
across Harvard University.

• We envision that the program would reflect both breadth and novel approaches. It
must also highlight opportunities for applied as well as fundamental work.
• Educational opportunities ranging from undergraduate to Ph.D. programs, and
their potential relation to existing programs (e.g., HST, Systems Biology) should
be investigated.
• The committee should analyze the existing and potential research scope of
bioengineering activities, as well as mechanisms to more efficiently enable these
activities. As the inspiration for much of bioengineering comes from the clinic,
and the resulting technologies are often applied in medicine, the committee should
specifically determine how bioengineering activities and structures could involve
Harvard teaching hospitals, and the many engineers already on faculty at these
institutions.
• The committee should aim to develop a strategy that will place Harvard at the
forefront of bioengineering, paying particular attention to emerging new
technologies and their application to bioengineering.

The committee should consult and discuss its findings with an advisory group (to be
selected) as well as other faculty members of SEAS, HMS and FAS.

We would like to receive a draft of your report by the end of March 2008 and a final
report by May 31, 2008.

We look forward to your report and we thank you for your efforts.

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 Ralph Weissleder, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor, Harvard Medical School; Director, Center for Systems

Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital
Harvard University,
Dr. Weissleder is a Professor at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for
Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Attending Interventional
Radiologist at MGH, member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Associate
Member of the Broad Institute (Chemical Biology Program). Dr. Weissleder has
published over 5000 peer reviewed articles, has authored and co-authored several
textbooks, is currently the principal investigator of several RO1 NIH grants (including a
P50 Center grant, a R24 grant, and a UO1 consortium focusing on nanotechnology) and
has 20 active or pending US and international patents. He is a founding member of the
Society for Molecular Imaging Research and has served as its President in 2002. His
work has been honored with numerous awards including the J. Taylor International Prize
in Medicine, the Millennium Pharmaceuticals Innovator Award, the AUR Memorial
Award, the ARRS President's Award and The Society for Molecular Imaging Lifetime
Achievement Award. He is a world leader in applying molecular imaging tools to the
study of complex human diseases. He has made fundamental discoveries in early disease
detection, development of nanomaterials for sensing and systems analysis. His research
has been translational and several of his developments have led to advanced clinical
trials.

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