At the Bioengineering conference held on June 3, W. Mark Saltzman, left, of the Chemical Engineering department, makes a point while Michael Shuler, director of the Bioengineering Program, middle, and President Hunter Rawlings listen. Peter Bruns, chair of the Division of Biological Sciences, rear, moderated the question-and-answer session. Adriana Rovers/University Photography
By Larry Bernard
Cornell faculty and administrators from a variety of fields gathered on campus June 3 to discuss how engineering and biology disciplines can cooperate in doing basic research.
The "University-wide Discussion on Bioengineering" featured speakers from the College of Engineering, the Division of Biological Sciences, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Arts and Sciences, and brought together faculty who have an interest in one of Cornell's newest programs Bioengineering.
"We are creating an intellectual vision for where we want to be (in this field)," said John Hopcroft, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering, who issued the charge to participants gathered in room 101 Phillips Hall, a refurbished multimedia auditorium/classroom. "It's hard to imagine a unit where molecular biology is not going to play a major role. Our hope today is to plant a seed . . . and nurture and develop it."
Michael Shuler, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Chemical Engineering and director of the Bioengineering Program, moderated the session. He said that bioengineering has been done at Cornell for the past 40 years, but only two years ago became a university-wide program.
President Hunter Rawlings delivered the introduction and welcoming address. "We are just beginning to understand the full potential in this field," which, he said, is of growing importance to Cornell. "In times of tight budgets, it is important to focus on the strengths we already have . . . and the potential for enriching our research programs," he continued.
Five speakers gave brief overviews of some of the research areas they are investigating. In all, 32 faculty members are part of the Cornell Bioengineering Program. The first doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering will be studying here this fall, and graduate engineering students already can take a "Bioengineering option" as a specialty within their master's program.
Jon Clardy, the Horace White Professor of Chemistry, described efforts to engineer drugs for genetic therapy. As an example of gene therapy, he described Rapamycin, a drug that turns off the immune system and can be used in cancer treatments. Using a so-called small molecule to turn on the foreign gene, the binding sites can be regulated so that they are closer together, making a therapy more effective.
"The difficulty is in turning the gene on and getting it to do what you want," Clardy said. "If you get two proteins next to each other, you get a product." Using campus resources, such as the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source for X-ray diffraction and the Cornell Theory Center for high-performance computing and visualization, Clardy and others in chemistry and biology are working on designing drugs and manipulating proteins.
Noel MacDonald, director of the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility and professor of electrical engineering, described efforts to build super-small, nano-scale biological and medical structures. "Several microinstruments are now on the horizon," he said. "It's really growing at a rapid rate."
MacDonald described a scanning, tunneling microscope he has built with a tip 5 microns tall. He envisions putting thousands of tips on a silicon chip to probe molecular-sized samples.
"We would like to have biologists put things on our tip," MacDonald said. With the ability to probe individual atoms, he told the group, "there could be a big payoff. Biofactories on a chip are possible."
Lynn Jelinski, director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Biotechnology and professor of engineering, who organized the afternoon discussion, showed that materials of the future may be inspired by biology. "The tools of biotechnology are at the point where you can make designed materials. We can insert genes encoding the structural protein into plants. We can harness biotechnology to make new drugs and materials."
As an example, Jelinski showed the work in her lab on synthesizing super-strong spider silk to insert into plants to make strong fibers.
W. Mark Saltzman, who arrives at Cornell this summer from Johns Hopkins for a faculty position in the Department of Chemical Engineering, described research on making polymers for internal drug delivery systems during a talk on how to build improved drugs and rebuild damaged organs. With so called polymer-drug conjugates, "you can program where a drug will be delivered and at what dosage, down to the millimeter," he said. "We're certain this will be useful in treating diseases of the brain."
Saltzman said that engineering new drugs that work better than traditional therapies is the goal. "We can make biological arrays of molecules and can deliver controlled doses to a specific tissue," he said.
The Earth as biosphere was the subject of a talk by Larry Walker, professor of agricultural and biological engineering, who described how bioengineering "can have an impact on a sustainable world and quality of life," he said.
From natural products that can reduce the need for herbicides to the microbial activity in compost, Walker said, there are ways to engineer a better world. With 70 percent of the municipal solid waste in this country being organic, he said, there may be better or more efficient ways of recycling organic material.
Peter Bruns, chair of the Division of Biological Sciences, moderated a question-and-answer session in which faculty in the audience participated. Faculty from the Cornell Medical College and College of Veterinary Medicine said they saw promise for collaborations with engineering disciplines.