This course introduces the basic driving forces for electric current, fluid flow, and mass transport, plus their application to a variety of biological systems. Basic mathematical and engineering tools will be introduced, in the context of biology and physiology. Various electrokinetic phenomena are also considered as an example of coupled nature of chemical-electro-mechanical driving forces. Applications include transport in biological tissues and across membranes, manipulation of cells and biomolecules, and microfluidics.

Express yourself through your genes! See if you can generate and collect three types of protein, then move on to explore the factors that affect protein synthesis in a cell.

Student teams learn about engineering design of green fluorescent proteins (GFPs) and their use in medical research, including stem cell research. They simulate the use of GFPs by adding fluorescent dye to water and letting a flower or plant to transport the dye throughout its structure. Students apply their knowledge of GFPs to engineering applications in the medical, environmental and space exploration fields. Due to the fluorescing nature of the dye, plant life of any color, light or dark, can be used unlike dyes that can only be seen in visible light.

Students are introduced to a challenge question. Towards answering the question, they generate ideas for what they need to know about medicines and how they move through our bodies, watch a few short videos to gain multiple perspectives, and then learn lecture material to obtain a basic understanding of how antibiotics kill bacteria in the human body. They learn why different forms of medicine (pill, liquid or shot) get into the blood stream at different speeds.

Students set up and run the experiments they designed in the Population Growth in Yeasts associated lesson, using simple yeast-molasses cultures in test tubes. Population growth is indicated by the amount of respiration occurring in the cultures, which in turn is indicated by the growth of carbon dioxide bubbles trapped within the culture tubes. Using this method, students test for a variety of environmental influences, such as temperature, food supply and pH.

Students learn about complex networks and how to use graphs to represent them. They also learn that graph theory is a useful part of mathematics for studying complex networks in diverse applications of science and engineering, including neural networks in the brain, biochemical reaction networks in cells, communication networks, such as the internet, and social networks. Students are also introduced to random processes on networks. An illustrative example shows how a random process can be used to represent the spread of an infectious disease, such as the flu, on a social network of students, and demonstrates how scientists and engineers use mathematics and computers to model and simulate random processes on complex networks for the purposes of learning more about our world and creating solutions to improve our health, happiness and safety.

Using ordinary household materials, student “biomedical engineering” teams design prototype models that demonstrate semipermeability under the hypothetical scenario that they are creating a teaching tool for medical students. Working within material constraints, each model consists of two layers of a medium separated by material acting as the membrane. The competing groups must each demonstrate how water (or another substance) passes through the first layer of the medium, through the membrane, and into the second layer of the medium. After a few test/evaluate/redesign cycles, teams present their best prototypes to the rest of the class. Then student teams collaborate as a class to create one optimal design that reflects what they learned from the group design successes and failures. A pre/post-quiz, worksheet and rubric are provided.

Through two lessons and five activities, students explore the structure and function of cell membranes. Specific transport functions, including active and passive transport, are presented. In the legacy cycle tradition, students are motivated with a Grand Challenge question. As they study the ingress and egress of particles through membranes, students learn about quantum dots and biotechnology through the concept of intracellular engineering.

This NetLogo model of leaf photosynthesis shows the macroscopic outcome of the reaction.

Students create large-scale models of microfluidic devices using a process similar to that of the PDMS and plasma bonding that is used in the creation of lab-on-a-chip devices. They use disposable foam plates, plastic bendable straws and gelatin dessert mix. After the molds have hardened overnight, they use plastic syringes to inject their model devices with colored fluid to test various flow rates. From what they learn, students are able to answer the challenge question presented in lesson 1 of this unit by writing individual explanation statements.

Students obtain a basic understanding of microfluidic devices, how they are developed and their uses in the medical field. After conducting the associated activity, they watch a video clip and learn about flow rate and how this relates to the speed at which medicine takes effect in the body. What they learn contributes to their ongoing objective to answer the challenge question presented in lesson 1 of this unit. They conclude by solving flow rate problems provided on a worksheet.

This course develops and applies scaling laws and the methods of continuum and statistical mechanics to biomechanical phenomena over a range of length scales, from molecular to cellular to tissue or organ level.

Students perform an activity similar to the childhood “telephone” game in which each communication step represents a biological process related to the passage of DNA from one cell to another. This game tangibly illustrates how DNA mutations can happen over several cell generations and the effects the mutations can have on the proteins that cells need to produce. Next, students use the results from the “telephone” game (normal, substitution, deletion or insertion) to test how the mutation affects the survivability of an organism in the wild. Through simple enactments, students act as “predators” and “eat” (remove) the organism from the environment, demonstrating natural selection based on mutation.

Living cells are divided into two types - procaryotic and eucaryotic. This division is based on internal complexity. This website will provide you with graphic roadmaps to the organization of both of these cell types.

Try your hand at assembling this plant cell jigsaw puzzle created with an image from CELLS alive! This puzzle is 32 pieces and generally takes a few minutes to solve. Have food!

The principles and practice of tissue engineering (and regenerative medicine) are taught by faculty of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. The principles underlying strategies for employing selected cells, biomaterial scaffolds, soluble regulators or their genes, and mechanical loading and culture conditions, for the regeneration of tissues and organs in vitro and in vivo are addressed. Differentiated cell types and stem cells are compared and contrasted for this application, as are natural and synthetic scaffolds. Methodology for the preparation of cells and scaffolds in practice is described. The rationale for employing selected growth factors is covered and the techniques for incorporating their genes into the scaffolds are examined. Discussion also addresses the influence of environmental factors including mechanical loading and culture conditions (e.g., static versus dynamic). Methods for fabricating tissue-engineered products and devices for implantation are taught. Examples of tissue engineering-based procedures currently employed clinically are analyzed as case studies.
Archived webcast lecture videos for the Fall 2008 version of this class can be found at the HST.535 Fall 2008 website.

Building on their understanding of graphs, students are introduced to random processes on networks. They walk through an illustrative example to see how a random process can be used to represent the spread of an infectious disease, such as the flu, on a social network of students. This demonstrates how scientists and engineers use mathematics to model and simulate random processes on complex networks. Topics covered include random processes and modeling disease spread, specifically the SIR (susceptible, infectious, resistant) model.

Can you pull a car with cordage made just from a plant? We put it to the test! This clip with Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum's Educator Nate Salzman provides a simple demonstration proving that a cell's microscopic structure affects its macroscopic properties. Included in the video is the very simple method needed to produce and test cordage from yucca leaves on your own.

If you're thinking of using this in a classroom, considering pairing this exploration of cells' structures with an engineering challenge! Yucca fiber can be made without boiling the leaves, if needed: students can either pound/mash leaves to isolate fibers or fibers can be peeled from wet leaves and used while still "green" (any cordage made from green fibers will loosen as it dries, however).

This resource is part of JPPM’s open educational resources project providing education content from our in-house educators, horticulturalists, curators, and conservationists at our 560 acre public park. The grounds have provided a home for different peoples for over 10,000 years and includes extensive archaeological sites, multiple ecosystems, and a 1930s farmstead designed by architect Gertrude Sawyer for the park’s namesake, Jefferson Patterson.