Preparing chemical engineering students for careers in emerging technologies, such as bioengineering and pharmaceutical engineering, is essential in today's competitive market. To meet the industry (and student) demand for training in bio-focused engineering, many schools offer specialized curricula that concentrate on the interface between biology and engineering, or offer elective courses at the senior or graduate level. However, integration of biology and chemical engineering at the lower levels and in core courses is often difficult in curricula that are already filled to capacity. The chemical engineering curriculum at Rowan University has been revised to include a Biological Systems & Applications course designed to introduce students to a variety of biological principles that are relevant to chemical engineering. Additionally, several laboratory modules and projects that can be easily incorporated at the freshman and sophomore levels have been developed. These modules include reverse engineering of the human body, reverse engineering of the beer making process, and designing a microbial fuel cell. Modules developed for the freshman year expose students to chemical engineering principles as they apply to living systems. The Biological Systems & Applications course, specifically designed for sophomore chemical engineering students and taught by faculty in biology, introduces students to a wide variety of topics, from prokaryotic and eukaryotic regulatory systems to food microbiology. A sophomore-level engineering project on microbial fuel cell design reinforces concepts in microbial growth and nutrition that are covered in the Biological Systems & Applications course. This collaborative approach to integrating biology and chemical engineering helps prepare students for industrially-sponsored projects at the junior and senior level, and for jobs in the food, biotech and pharmaceutical industries. This paper will discuss the implementation and impact of these modifications to the curriculum.
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