Bio-convergence is combining the knowledge and technologies in the fields of biology and life sciences with that of engineering and computer sciences. It includes both concepts from Information and Communication technologies (e.g. microelectronics, MEMS, algorithms, systems etc.) with life science. Bio-convergence can be treated as a new field or an approach, that is growing at an accelerated rate affecting both academia and the global industry. It greatly affects medicine and medical sciences, the environment, energy, agriculture, food, security, and other sectors. Bio-convergence is expected to be the leading factor in development and production in all these fields in the coming years. It will be interesting to see how taking engineering and exact sciences concepts and combining them with life sciences methodologies creating new ways of doing things, will affect the world.
In this lecture, we will focus more on the engineering side of bio-convergence. We will review method and approach using micro and nano-scale engineering concepts in life sciences.
Next, we will present new strategies, based on a novel synthetic biology approach. For example, we will present “analog” and “digital” circuits for biological computation.
Finally, we will present a few possible applications and a strategy for both research and large-scale manufacturing using the novel concepts.
Yosi Shacham-Diamand, Professor of EE
The Scojen Institute for Synthetic Biology Center, head, Reichman University, Israel