TEACHING FLUID MECHANICS AND MASS TRANS-PORT TO BIOLOGISTS

摘要

Teaching chemical engineering to non-chemical engineers presents a myriad of challenges ranging from course development to delivery to evaluation. However, these challenges reflect the expanding scope of chemical engineering profession and as a consequence the chemical engineering education. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers Centennial report in 2008 noted that "Chemical engineering today is a field dedicated to the engineering of molecular systems, applying principles from underlying sciences (e.g., chemistry, biology, material science, and applied physics) and systems engineering (e.g., applied mathematics, operations research, and computer science)". This definition immediately implies chemical engineers crossing over to several other disciples, and in reciprocity professionals from other disciplines crossing over into chemical engineering. This crossover is particularly true to the field of biotechnology which calls for an intimate partnership between chemical engineers and biologists. The explosive growth of biotechnology and related industries into an enterprise worth several billion dollars and the fact that about 50% of all drugs will be biologics by 2014 has persuaded many biologist and chemical engineers to migrate towards a career in biotechnology. This migration is evident from the fact that employment of chemical engineers in biotech/pharmaceutical industry increased from 5.7% in 1996 to 11.3% in 2007 while employment in conventional chemical industries dropped from 33.3% to 25.5% during the same time period.