Incorporating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Content Into Bioengineering Curricula: A Program-Level Approach.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are interconnected with bioengineering, yet have historically been absent from accreditation standards and curricula. Toward educating DEI-competent bioengineers and meeting evolving accreditation requirements, we took a program-level approach to incorporate, catalog, and assess DEI content through the bioengineering undergraduate program. To support instructors in adding DEI content and inclusive pedagogy, our team developed a DEI planning worksheet and surveyed instructors pre- and post-course. Over the academic year, 74% of instructors provided a pre-term and/or post-term response. Of responding instructors, 91% described at least one DEI curricular content improvement, and 88% incorporated at least one new inclusive pedagogical approach. Based on the curricular adjustments reported by instructors, we grouped the bioengineering-related DEI content into five DEI competency categories: bioethics, inclusive design, inclusive scholarship, inclusive professionalism, and systemic inequality. To assess the DEI content incorporation, we employed direct assessment via course assignments, end-of-module student surveys, end-of-term course evaluations, and an end-of-year program review. When asked how much their experience in the program helped them develop specific DEI competencies, students reported a relatively high average of 3.79 (scale of 1 = "not at all" to 5 = "very much"). Additionally, based on student performance in course assignments and other student feedback, we found that instructors were able to effectively incorporate DEI content into a wide variety of courses. We offer this framework and lessons learned to be adopted by programs similarly motivated to train DEI-competent engineering professionals and provide an equitable, inclusive engineering education for all students.

NIH/NIBIB Introduces New Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration.

In Late January 2023, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) launched a new center designed to accelerate biomedical discovery and therapeutics, in part by pulling together expert, multidisciplinary teams from throughout the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to quickly respond when national or global health crises strike. The inaugural director of this Center for BME Technology Acceleration, or BETA Center, is biomedical engineer Manu Platt, Ph.D., (Figure 1) who is also taking on the role of NIBIB associate director for scientific diversity, equity, and inclusion. Platt previously held appointments as professor, Wallace H. Coulter distinguished faculty fellow, and diversity director of the Center on Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems and Cellular Manufacturing and Technologies at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University.

Bioengineering of biowaste to recover bioproducts and bioenergy: A circular economy approach towards sustainable zero-waste environment.

The inevitable need for waste valorisation and management has revolutionized the way in which the waste is visualised as a potential biorefinery for various product development rather than offensive trash. Biowaste has emerged as a potential feedstock to produce several value-added products. Bioenergy generation is one of the potential applications originating from the valorisation of biowaste. Bioenergy production requires analysis and optimization of various parameters such as biowaste composition and conversion potential to develop innovative and sustainable technologies for most effective utilization of biowaste with enhanced bioenergy production. In this context, feedstocks, such as food, agriculture, beverage, and municipal solid waste act as promising resources to produce renewable energy. Similarly, the concept of microbial fuel cells employing biowaste has clearly gained research focus in the past few decades. Despite of these potential benefits, the area of bioenergy generation still is in infancy and requires more interdisciplinary research to be sustainable alternatives. This review is aimed at analysing the bioconversion potential of biowaste to renewable energy. The possibility of valorising underutilized biowaste substrates is elaborately presented. In addition, the application and efficiency of microbial fuel cells in utilizing biowaste are described in detail taking into consideration of its great scope. Furthermore, the review addresses the significance bioreactor development for energy production along with major challenges and future prospects in bioenergy production. Based on this review it can be concluded that bioenergy production utilizing biowaste can clearly open new avenues in the field of waste valorisation and energy research. Systematic and strategic developments considering the techno economic feasibilities of this excellent energy generation process will make them a true sustainable alternative for conventional energy sources.

How to establish infrastructures to achieve more efficient regenerative medicine?

The field of regenerative medicine (RM) as an innovative technology has the ability to affect the healthcare system. It develops a variety of techniques through stem cell biology, genetics, bioengineering, biomaterial science, and tissue engineering to replace or restore the role of lost, disabled, or aging cells in the human body. However, the field's proficiency has still been underwhelming at the clinical trial level. This could be due to the innovation of such technologies, as well as their incredible nature. Therefore, managing the infrastructure framework for the safe and efficient application of the aforementioned field of science would help in the process of progress. In this context, the current review focuses on how to establish infrastructures for more effective RM.

Implementation of Health Technology Assessment and Management Course in Undergraduate Program in Biomedical Engineering ITB.

The Undergraduate Program in Biomedical Engineering ITB, Indonesia, introduce the Health Technology Assessment and Management as an elective course in 2021. This course is implemented to support the World Health Assembly that urges the member states to establish national strategies in health technology assessment and management, particularly medical devices. Furthermore, it is designed to give biomedical engineering students a broader insight into their career opportunities. Therefore, this course is delivered by the practitioner and guided by the main lecturer. The course syllabus is developed from the WHO Medical Devices Technical Series and European Network for Health Technology Assessment. It tries to implement HTA Core Model for Rapid Relative Effectiveness Assessments. A questionnaire is used to measure the students' perception of the course implementation. Moreover, it is used to obtain the students' comments and feedback. The course that is delivered by the practitioner not only gives the course content but also the context. After attending the course, students have a broader insight into the career opportunities as biomedical engineers in Indonesia.

Eco-bioengineering tools in ecohydrological assessment of eutrophic water bodies.

Eutrophication of water bodies and deterioration of water quality are emerging environmental crises. The root causes and consequences of eutrophication are multidirectional. Thus, they provide a huge scope of risk-analysis and risk-assessment in the domain of remediation studies. However, recent restoration studies reveal a global trend of utilizing traditional restoration methods combined with advanced pioneer innovative techniques developed in the field of science and technology. This review introduces a novel approach to consider ecohydrological assessment of eutrophication by classical biomanipulation practices emphasising on their evolution into innovative 'eco-bioengineering' methods. The main objective of this study is to critically analyse and recognize the research gaps in classical biomanipulation and appreciate the reproducibility and efficacy of eco-bioengineering methods at micro- and macrolevel aquatic ecosystems. Comprehensive literature review was conducted on offline and online platforms. Our survey revealed (a) continuation of a historical trend in classical biomanipulation practices (61.64%) and (b) an ascending drift in eco-bioengineering research (38.36%) in the last decade (2010-2021). At a global scale, recent biomanipulation research has a skewed distribution in Europe (41.10%), East Asia (32.88%), North America (10.96%), South Africa (4.11%), South America (2.74%), Middle East (1.37%), Oceania (1.37%), and non-specific regions (5.48%). Finally, this review analysis revealed the comprehensiveness of eco-bioengineering methods and their strong ecological resilience to recurrence of eutrophication and fluctuating environmental flows in the future. Therefore, our review reinforces the supremacy of eco-bioengineering methods as cost-effective green technologies providing sustainable solutions to restore the eutrophic waters at a global scale.

[Development of first-class biotechnology major under new economic situation].

The rapid development of bioeconomy urgently needs the support of biotechnology talents. Establishing an innovative training mode of biotechnology talents can provide support for regional economic development and industrial upgrading. Closely revolved around the concepts of new engineering disciplines development, such as serving the national strategy, docking industry, leading the future development and student-centered, a new economy-oriented training system was developed in School of Bioengineering of Dalian University of Technology. These systems include interdisciplinary curriculum system reconstruction, project-based teaching mode reform, evaluation system implementation and other aspects. The reform and exploration of the first-class biotechnology major under the new economic situation, puts forward the theory of value guidance, deep foundation, strong sense of innovation, technical and non-technical core ability literacy. This reform meets the industry demand for talent diversification, personalization, and dynamic change, helps the merge of industry and education, which provides a way for fostering first-class biotechnology-majored undergraduates.

Rhizospheric microbiome: Bio-based emerging strategies for sustainable agriculture development and future perspectives.

In the light of intensification of cropping practices and changing climatic conditions, nourishing a growing global population requires optimizing environmental sustainability and reducing ecosystem impacts of food production. The use of microbiological systems to ameliorate the agricultural production in a sustainable and eco-friendly way is widespread accepted as a future key-technology. However, the multitude of interaction possibilities between the numerous beneficial microbes and plants in their habitat calls for systematic analysis and management of the rhizospheric microbiome. This review exploits present and future strategies for rhizospheric microbiome management with the aim to generate a comprehensive understanding of the known tools and techniques. Significant information on the structure and dynamics of rhizospheric microbiota of isolated microbial communities is now available. These microbial communities have beneficial effects including increased plant growth, essential nutrient acquisition, pathogens tolerance, and increased abiotic as well as biotic stress tolerance such as drought, temperature, salinity and antagonistic activities against the phyto-pathogens. A better and comprehensive understanding of the various effects and microbial interactions can be gained by application of molecular approaches as extraction of DNA/RNA and other biochemical markers to analyze microbial soil diversity. Novel techniques like interactome network analysis and split-ubiquitin system framework will enable to gain more insight into communication and interactions between the proteins from microbes and plants. The aim of the analysis tasks leads to the novel approach of Rhizosphere microbiome engineering. The capability of forming the rhizospheric microbiome in a defined way will allow combining several microbes (e.g. bacteria and fungi) for a given environment (soil type and climatic zone) in order to exert beneficial influences on specific plants. This integration will require a large-scale effort among academic researchers, industry researchers and farmers to understand and manage interactions of plant-microbiomes within modern farming systems, and is clearly a multi-domain approach and can be mastered only jointly by microbiology, mathematics and information technology. These innovations will open up a new avenue for designing and implementing intensive farming microbiome management approaches to maximize resource productivity and stress tolerance of agro-ecosystems, which in return will create value to the increasing worldwide population, for both food production and consumption.

Enabling commercial success of industrial biotechnology.

Commercial-scale research translation has been muted.

Bioengineered biochar as smart candidate for resource recovery toward circular bio-economy: a review.

Biochar's ability to mediate and facilitate microbial contamination degradation, as well as its carbon-sequestration potential, has sparked interest in recent years. The scope, possible advantages (economic and environmental), and future views are all evaluated in this review. We go over the many designed processes that are taking place and show why it is critical to look into biochar production for resource recovery and the role of bioengineered biochar in waste recycling. We concentrate on current breakthroughs in the fields of engineered biochar application techniques to systematically and sustainable technology. As a result, this paper describes the use of biomass for biochar production using various methods, as well as its use as an effective inclusion material to increase performance. The impact of biochar amendments on microbial colonisation, direct interspecies electron transfer, organic load minimization, and buffering maintenance is explored in detail. The majority of organic and inorganic (heavy metals) contaminants in the environment today are caused by human activities, such as mining and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which can be treated sustainably by using engineered biochar to promote the establishment of a sustainable engineered process by inducing the circular bioeconomy.

Exploring presentations of sustainability by US synthetic biology companies.

The field of synthetic biology is increasingly being positioned as a key driver of a more sustainable, bio-based economy, and has seen rapid industry growth over the past 15 years. In this paper we undertake an exploratory investigation of the relationship between sustainability and synthetic biology, identifying and analyzing sustainability-related language on the public websites of 24, US-based synthetic biology companies. We observe that sustainability is a visible part of the self-presentation of the nascent synthetic biology industry, explicitly mentioned by 18 of the 24 companies. The dominant framing of sustainability on these company websites emphasizes environmental gains and "free-market" approaches to sustainability, with little explicit mention of social dimensions of sustainability such as access, justice or intergenerational equity. Furthermore, the model of sustainability presented focuses on incremental transition towards environmental sustainability through direct substitution of products and processes using bioengineered alternatives (n = 16 companies), with no change in societal consumption or policy frameworks required in order to see sustainability gains. One-third of the companies analyzed (n = 8) mention "nature" on their websites, variously framing it as a resource to be managed or as a source of inspiration; whether the latter signals a potentially more complex relationship with nature than advanced free-market models of sustainability remains to be seen. As the synthetic biology industry begins to grow in size and visibility, we suggest this is an opportune time for the community to engage in explicit deliberation about its approach to sustainability.

Transforming biorefinery designs with 'Plug-In Processes of Lignin' to enable economic waste valorization.

Biological lignin valorization has emerged as a major solution for sustainable and cost-effective biorefineries. However, current biorefineries yield lignin with inadequate fractionation for bioconversion, yet substantial changes of these biorefinery designs to focus on lignin could jeopardize carbohydrate efficiency and increase capital costs. We resolve the dilemma by designing 'plug-in processes of lignin' with the integration of leading pretreatment technologies. Substantial improvement of lignin bioconversion and synergistic enhancement of carbohydrate processing are achieved by solubilizing lignin via lowering molecular weight and increasing hydrophilic groups, addressing the dilemma of lignin- or carbohydrate-first scenarios. The plug-in processes of lignin could enable minimum polyhydroxyalkanoate selling price at as low as $6.18/kg. The results highlight the potential to achieve commercial production of polyhydroxyalkanoates as a co-product of cellulosic ethanol. Here, we show that the plug-in processes of lignin could transform biorefinery design toward sustainability by promoting carbon efficiency and optimizing the total capital cost.

Guiding Ethical Principles in Engineering Biology Research.

Engineering biology is being applied toward solving or mitigating some of the greatest challenges facing society. As with many other rapidly advancing technologies, the development of these powerful tools must be considered in the context of ethical uses for personal, societal, and/or environmental advancement. Researchers have a responsibility to consider the diverse outcomes that may result from the knowledge and innovation they contribute to the field. Together, we developed a Statement of Ethics in Engineering Biology Research to guide researchers as they incorporate the consideration of long-term ethical implications of their work into every phase of the research lifecycle. Herein, we present and contextualize this Statement of Ethics and its six guiding principles. Our goal is to facilitate ongoing reflection and collaboration among technical researchers, social scientists, policy makers, and other stakeholders to support best outcomes in engineering biology innovation and development.

Sorghum as Biofuel Crop: Interdisciplinary Methods to Enhance Productivity (Botany, Genetics, Breeding, Seed Technology, and Bioengineering).

Sorghum is a versatile crop cultivated since time immemorial. It fulfills the basic needs of mankind in the contest of food, feed, fodder, nutrition, and pharmaceutical uses. Now it adds one more paramount importance as a second-generation biofuel. It offers ethanol from grain, stem (sweet sorghum), and biomass (lignocellulose), and the previous one is discouraging because of food versus fuel conflict. However sorghum lignocellulosic biofuel are gaining momentum in order to conserve nature from depleting first-generation fuel. This chapter describes interdisciplinary approaches/methods involving understanding the genetics of biofuel traits, formulating suitable breeding strategies and seed enhancement techniques to achieve higher productivity in marginal lands in order to avoid food vs. fuel conflict, and finally realization of bioethanol by involving bioengineering process. Many reviews, worldwide researches, and policy papers accepted that sorghum has tremendous potential to be used as a crop of biofuel production.

Environmental Assessment of Enzyme Production and Purification.

The importance of bioprocesses has increased in recent decades, as they are considered to be more sustainable than chemical processes in many cases. E factors can be used to assess the sustainability of processes. However, it is noticeable that the contribution of enzyme synthesis and purification is mostly neglected. We, therefore, determined the E factors for the production and purification of 10 g enzymes. The calculated complete E factor including required waste and water is 37,835 gwaste·genzyme-1. This result demonstrates that the contribution of enzyme production and purification should not be neglected for sustainability assessment of bioprocesses.

Advances in Micro/Nanoporous Membranes for Biomedical Engineering.

Porous membrane materials at the micro/nanoscale have exhibited practical and potential value for extensive biological and medical applications associated with filtration and isolation, cell separation and sorting, micro-arrangement, in-vitro tissue reconstruction, high-throughput manipulation and analysis, and real-time sensing. Herein, an overview of technological development of micro/nanoporous membranes (M/N-PMs) is provided. Various membrane types and the progress documented in membrane fabrication techniques, including the electrochemical-etching, laser-based technology, microcontact printing, electron beam lithography, imprinting, capillary force lithography, spin coating, and microfluidic molding are described. Their key features, achievements, and limitations associated with micro/nanoporous membrane (M/N-PM) preparation are discussed. The recently popularized applications of M/N-PMs in biomedical engineering involving the separation of cells and biomolecules, bioparticle operations, biomimicking, micropatterning, bioassay, and biosensing are explored too. Finally, the challenges that need to be overcome for M/N-PM fabrication and future applications are highlighted.

[Implementation of a WeChat small program assisted process assessment system in "Experiment of Inorganic Chemistry" for Biological Engineering undergraduates].

The convenience of "no installation, available at your fingertips" of the WeChat small program makes it unique in the application of mobile terminal auxiliary experimental teaching. In order to optimize the assessment system and improve the quality and outcomes of experimental teaching, a self-designed WeChat small program was used to assist the development of the process assessment system. This system was applied to the teaching practice of "Experiment of Inorganic Chemistry" course for the first-year undergraduates majored in Biological Engineering, with the aim to promote teaching and learning by assessment. The results showed that course scores of the students who used this small program were superior to the control group and the correlation between the process assessment and final examination results was significant. These results indicated the WeChat small program assisted process assessment could effectively improve the learning outcomes of students, enable them to grasp the knowledge of Experiment of Inorganic Chemistry efficiently. The results of the questionnaire for the teachers and students also showed a high recognition of the WeChat small program assisted teaching.