BE Board:Dinner Discussion/The Next 20 years of Course 20: Difference between revisions
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'''Interesting Quotes''' | '''Interesting Quotes''' | ||
''Definition of Engineering'': | ''Definition of Engineering'': the art of organizing and directing men and of controlling forces and materials of nature for the benefit of the human race (from the Compton and Bunker article) | ||
==Impacts on Society== | ==Impacts on Society== |
Revision as of 15:33, 24 March 2006
In this dinner discussion, we will consider how Course 20 may evolve, and what impact it may have on society, over the next 20 years. Your moderators at the table will be Sri Kosuri and Ben Zeskind.
Historical Perspective
from MIT Biology History page:
In 1936 a committee composed of MIT President Karl T. Compton, Vice President Vannevar Bush, and Professor John W. M. Bunker proposed that MIT develop a new type of biology--biological engineering--which would utilize basic knowledge of physics, mathematics, and chemistry, as well as several fields of engineering... Training in public health was abandoned in 1942 and the department name was changed to the Department of Biology and Biological Engineering (the name was changed back in 1994).
In 1939, Compton & Bunker published a paper in the Scientific Monthly titled The Genesis of a Curriculum in Biological Engineering.
Some departments have come and gone over the ages while others have stuck around. What make the difference?
- Program in Food Technology 1945-1988 (with several name changes in between)
- Department of General Science 1904-1957 (General Engineering option added in 1920)
- Physics 1873-present
Key Question
What factors will determine whether Course 20 survives and thrives over the next 20 years, or is abandoned?
Interesting Quotes
Definition of Engineering: the art of organizing and directing men and of controlling forces and materials of nature for the benefit of the human race (from the Compton and Bunker article)
Impacts on Society
- Medicine: prevent, diagnose, cure disease; first pharma, then biotech, then ???
- Economy: companies started by graduates, economic impact of discoveries, changes to healthcare economics, effect on research funding
- Science: better understanding of biological processes, better tools to study (measure, model, manipulate) biological processes
- Society: ethical/legal/social issues raised by advances
- Government: changes in operation of FDA/regulatory agencies, NIH
Impacts on MIT
- MIT: effect of undergrad major, expansion of space
Notes from 1/18/05 brainstorm session about the next 20 years of bioengineering.
- Will neuroscience (and/or AI) finally take off?
- Better models/tests of human physiology
- Infectious diseases
- Biological solutions to energy problems
- bionanotechnology
- individual genomes likely to be "easily" sequenced by 2010
- drug information content << cell information content.. So do we forsee the end of drug-based therapies?
Quoted paragraph from Leroy Hood, by way of the Economist 9/12/05
TEN years from now, you will not have to spend hours in a doctor's office to complete a comprehensive health check-up. Instead, with just a single pin-prick, a nanotechnology device will quickly measure and analyse 1,000 proteins in a droplet of your blood. Based on this “molecular fingerprint”, your doctor will prescribe drug regimens tailored to your personal state of health that will not only be able to reverse many diseases, but will also prevent their manifestation in the first place.
Other recent topics in the Economist about the future of biotechnology
- 3/9/2006: Organs to order
- 2/23/06: How to live for ever (Aubrey de Grey)
- 1/5/06: Fraud, stem cells, and cloning
- 12/20/05: Deciphering the human epigenome
- summer2005: Weight-loss drugs
- World in 2006: Climate change
- World in 2006: Diseases of the poor world
I couldn't figure out how to upload a .pdf but the 1 July 2005 issue of science had a ton of questions/ideas about the next century of science... If we decide we want to add something like this, I can write them down.