The involvement of the engineer in biological sciences can be seen in several different ways depending on the areas where the engineering knowledge merges with the biological facts:

Tissue and Cellular Engineering and Biotechnology:

Quantitative studies of the structure, function, and response of tissues and cellular systems and devices; receptor-mediated cell processes, such as adhesion and migration, proliferation, mechanical-chemical signal transudation and cell-to-cell communication; quantitative cellular and systemic immunology, including virus-cell interactions; membrane mechanics and dynamics; artificial organs and tissue structure/function relationships; techniques for analyzing cell and tissue function and structure, such as optical and electron microscopy, morphometry and stereo logy, and fluorescence monitoring techniques.

Biomaterials and Biological Interfaces:

Biocompatibility of implant able materials; mechanisms of tissue reactions; cellular responses to foreign surfaces; cellular mechanics and growth processes at interfaces; physico- chemical properties of tissues, body and tissue composition; fractal tissue structure; prosthetic devices and artificial organs; and rehabilitation engineering at the molecular, cell, tissue and organ levels.

Biological Signal Processing and Instrumentation:

Basic research in bioinstrumentation for both clinical and research applications; development of transducers for measurement of physiological measurements and associated instrumentation-telemetry; biomedical imaging theory and instrumentation; innovative applications of computers and information science to research and clinical data acquisition, processing, and interpretation; methods of analysis for chaotic dynamical or fractal signals; spatial texture analysis.

Tissue, Cell, Organ, and Body Biomechanics:

Physical and chemical aspects of mechanical events in fluids and solids in tissues; cellular biomechanics; molecular and cellular responses to strains; cellular biomechanical transudation; growth processes; finite element modeling of muscular-skeletal status and dynamics; deformation processes in tissues; rehabilitation and orthopedic biomechanics; contractile processes and excitation-contraction coupling; molecular dynamics of proteins; effects of weightlessness on muscle biochemistry and force development; biomechanical dynamical non-linear systems.

Dynamical, Regulatory, and Integrative Biology:

Physiological and biochemical systems analysis; bio-systems analysis and feedback control; bioreactors; metabolic energetic and cell function; mathematical models as analogs or tools for the analysis of physiological systems; simulation methods, optimization techniques, parameter identification and estimation, chaotic dynamical and fractal methods in biological signals and structures; neural, respiratory, cardiovascular, and musculo-skeletal engineering.

Transport Phenomena, Systems Analysis and Electro physiology:

Membrane characterization; heat and mass transport mechanisms; membrane transporter and receptor kinetics; pharmaco kinetics; channel protein function; convection-diffusion-permeation-reaction processes; electro physiology of cells, tissues and organs; the spread of excitation or of electrical or magnetic fields; applications to electrocardiography and electroencephalography. Integrative modeling of molecular, cellular, organ, metabolic and regulatory systems.

Imaging:

Synthesis, Characterization, and Display. Emphasis is placed on defining the quantitative relation between regional signal intensity and the biological variable of interest, and on developing analytical routines for the functional imaging of the biological variable. Image reconstruction, enhancement, and segmentation and their applications. The use of physiologic modeling in image reconstruction, feature segmentation and identification, and spatial characterization in the analysis of image sequences. Visualization in research and teaching.

Neural Engineering:

Bioelectricity of nerve cells and muscles, quantitative models of neurons, synapses and neurological disorders, sensory and motor systems, electromagnetic phenomena, biosensors in neural application, neurological control systems, functional electrical stimulation, neural prosthetic and therapeutic devices, and auditory and visual prostheses.

Bioengineering in Education, Industry and Society:

Experimental procedures for teaching; course evaluation; computer-based approaches; engineering design and analysis in biology; biophysical understanding versus data acquisition; inter institutional collaborations in education; Internet and education, resource centers.