Harvard Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

The Harvard Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (HIBIE) was founded based on the recognition that boundaries between living and non-living systems are breaking down as a result of recent revolutionary advances in engineering, nanotechnology, molecular cell biology, and computer science. This convergence of engineering, the physical sciences, and the life sciences is creating exciting new possibilities for medicine and our broader industrial society. HIBIE will create an unparalleled multidisciplinary research and educational environment in order to expand our understanding of the engineering principles that nature uses to build living things, and to harness these insights to create biologically inspired materials, devices, and control technologies to address unmet medical needs worldwide.

HIBIE will initially focus on three emerging research areas that proceed from basic to applied, and that take complementary bottom-up and top-down approaches to living systems engineering: Synthetic Biology, Biological Control, and Living Materials. All of these efforts will be facilitated by development of enabling micro- and nano-technologies. Biologically inspired engineering methodologies that emerge from this research may allow us to construct artificial cells, fabricate implantable nanodevices, regenerate tissues, reprogram aging organs, and engineer low-cost medical technologies for use in developing nations. The HIBIE also will create innovative coursework, interdisciplinary laboratory training, and collaboration for trainees with physicians and industrial end users of these technologies.