Fall 2013 CONVERGENCE OF ENGINEERING AND LIFE SCIENCES The BRIDGE LINKING ENGINEERING AND SOCIETY Nanotechnology: An Enduring Bridge Between Engineering and Medicine Sarah Hurst Petrosko, Catherine A. Fromen, Evelyn Auyeung, Joseph M. DeSimone, and Chad A. Mirkin Understanding and Harnessing the Immune System for the Rational Design of Therapies and Vaccines Arup K. Chakraborty and Mark M. Davis Systems Biology and Systems Pharmacology Douglas A. Lauffenburger and Kathleen M. Giacomini Regenerative Engineering: Materials, Mimicry, and Manipulations to Promote Cell and Tissue Growth Cato T. Laurencin, George Q. Daley, and Roshan James Microfabrication: The Interface Between Medicine and Engineering Stephen R. Quake Applications of Synthetic Biology to Enhance Life Jay D. Keasling and J. Craig Venter The mission of the National Academy of Engineering is to advance the well-being of the nation by promoting a vibrant engineering profession and by marshalling the expertise and insights of eminent engineers to provide independent advice to the federal government on matters involving engineering and technology. The BRIDGE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING Charles O. Holliday Jr., Chair C.D. (Dan) Mote Jr., President Maxine L. Savitz, Vice President Thomas F. Budinger, Home Secretary Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Foreign Secretary Martin B. Sherwin, Treasurer Editor in Chief: Ronald M. Latanision Managing Editor: Cameron H. Fletcher Production Assistant: Penelope Gibbs The Bridge (ISSN 0737-6278) is published quarterly by the National Aca d emy of Engineering, 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20418. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, DC. Vol. 43, No. 3, Fall 2013 Postmaster: Send address changes to The Bridge, 2101 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20418. Papers are presented in The Bridge on the basis of general interest and time- liness. They reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily the position of the National Academy of Engineering. The Bridge is printed on recycled paper. C © 2013 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. A complete copy of The Bridge is available in PDF format at www.nae.edu/TheBridge. Some of the articles in this issue are also avail- able as HTML documents and may contain links to related sources of information, multimedia files, or other content. The Volume 43, Number 3 • Fall 2013 BRIDGE LINKING ENGINEERING AND SOCIETY Editors’ Note 3 The Convergence of Engineering and the Life Sciences Phillip A. Sharp and Robert Langer Features 7 Nanotechnology: An Enduring Bridge Between Engineering and Medicine Sarah Hurst Petrosko, Catherine A. Fromen, Evelyn Auyeung, Joseph M. DeSimone, and Chad A. Mirkin Nanotechnology has created a renaissance in analytical tool development and breakthrough materials that enhance the way researchers and physicians can study, track, and treat disease. 16 Understanding and Harnessing the Immune System for the Rational Design of Therapies and Vaccines Arup K. Chakraborty and Mark M. Davis Collaborative efforts are needed among engineers, scientists, and clinicians to progress toward systematically harnessing the immune system to combat pathogens and diseases. Only then can the design of immunomodulating vaccines and therapies become like the design of aircraft and microelectronics today. 26 Systems Biology and Systems Pharmacology Douglas A. Lauffenburger and Kathleen M. Giacomini The intellectual approach of engineers is especially suitable for advancing the understanding and utility of biology. 34 Regenerative Engineering: Materials, Mimicry, and Manipulations to Promote Cell and Tissue Growth Cato T. Laurencin, George Q. Daley, and Roshan James Cells can be a fundamental building block of regenerative strategies, and novel means of manipulating stem cells using biomaterials and factors will be essential to realizing the bold long-term goals of limb and organ regeneration. 42 Microfabrication: The Interface Between Medicine and Engineering Stephen R. Quake Just as the invention of the integrated circuit catalyzed the transition from vacuum tube computers to the modern computer era, microfluidic devices provide unprecedented advances in biological automation and productivity. (continued on next page) The BRIDGE 48 Applications of Synthetic Biology to Enhance Life Jay D. Keasling and J. Craig Venter Advances in synthetic biology will accelerate the development of lower-cost, bio-based, sustainable production methods for food and feed ingredients, chemicals, and biofuels in the next 25 years. NAE News and Notes 59 NAE Newsmakers 60 Vest Dinner 61 China-America Frontiers of Engineering Held in Beijing 63 NAE Regional Meetings 63 University of Minnesota Hosts Regional Meeting of the NAE 64 University of Arizona Hosts NAE Regional Meeting on Past, Present, and Future Explorations of Astronomy, Optics, and Large Telescopes 65 Commonweal & Anderson Interns Join NAE Program Office 66 Donor Wall 67 In Memoriam 68 Calendar of Meetings and Events 69 Publications of Interest The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self- The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National perpetuating society of distin guished scholars engaged in scientific Acad e my of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and appropriate pro fes sions in the examination of policy matters pertaining technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the author- to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility ity of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional char- has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal gov ern ment on ter to be an adviser to the federal government and, upon its own scientific and technical matters. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Harvey V. Fineberg is president of the Institute of Medicine. The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, The National Research Council was organized by the National under the charter of the Nation al Academy of Sciences, as a parallel Academy of Scienc es in 1916 to associate the broad community of organization of out stand ing engineers. It is autonomous in its adminis- science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of fur ther ing tration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National knowledge and advising the federal government. Func tion ing in Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal gov - accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the ernment. The National Academy of En gi neer ing also sponsors engi- Council has become the principal operating agency of both the neering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages edu- National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engi- cation and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of neering in providing services to the government, the public, and the engineers. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president of the National Academy scientific and en gi neer ing communities. The Council is administered of Engineering. jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Ralph J. Cicerone and Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., are chair and vice chair, respec- tively, of the National Research Council. www.national-academies.org FALL 2006 3 Editors’ Note Mapping the human genome defined biomedical sci- ence at the turn of this century, 50 years after Watson and Crick’s original report in Nature. The sequencing of the first genome took 20 years, and today it takes an hour, if not minutes. This and associated advances in complex genetics have fundamentally changed under- standing of human evolution, cancer, and even mental disorders. The “-omics” movement, developing alongside genomics, sparked, for example, transcriptomics, Phillip A. Sharp Robert Langer sequencing of the RNAs in cells; proteomics, determi- nation of all the proteins in cells; and metabolomics, Phillip A. Sharp (NAS/IOM) is Institute Professor in the Department of characterization of all the metabolites in cells. These Biology and Robert Langer (NAS/NAE/IOM) is David H. Koch Institute are less precisely defined than the genome as an objec- tive but are dramatically revealing the components of Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, both at the cells in real time. Koch Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A beneficial tangent of genomics is the rapid and inexpensive sequencing of DNA. Before long, the The Convergence of Engineering sequences of the genomes of plants and microorganisms and the Life Sciences and other life forms will reveal an almost unlimited set of new genes, many with novel functions, the permuta- Two entities converge when advances and time chan- tions of which will enable new scientific processes, med- nel them to the same point. This is an appropriate way ical treatments, and even fuel sources. As we wrote in to characterize and address converging research in life 2011, the next challenge in biomedical research will be sciences and engineering, computation, and physical to solve problems of highly complex and integrated bio- sciences. logical systems (Sharp and Langer 2011). We pointed The story of convergence starts in 1953 when molecu- out that there is an increasing need to merge disciplines lar biology originated in the discovery of the