Injectable nanogel can monitor blood-sugar levels and secrete
insulin when needed. Biotechnology will continue to be "fruitful
for mining" by chemical engineers, who have already developed
many of the enabling technologies for that field, said Institute
Professor Daniel I.C. Wang at last Friday's inaugural lecture in
Frontiers of Biotechnology. The new series is organized by the
Department of Chemical Engineering. Professor Wang, who directed
the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center (BPEC) from
1985-98, went on to give specific examples of enabling
technologies developed in his own lab. He then reflected on
unmet engineering challenges in biotechnology and some of the
technologies that will be key to meeting them. Key inventions
developed in Professor Wang's lab include microspheres on which
mammalian cells can be grown (a worldwide patent on the work was
licensed to Pharmacia), and a technique for purifying proteins
at rates 10 to 1,000 times faster than existing technology. The
latter technique was deve