Bioprocess Engineering: Basic Concepts, 3rd Edition

15. Medical Applications of Bioprocess Engineering

With increasing knowledge of cellular and molecular biology, the boundary between traditional bioprocess engineering and biomedical engineering has become increasingly fuzzy. In this chapter, we consider examples in which bioprocess principles are critical to solution of medical problems. Two important areas are tissue engineering and gene therapy using viral vectors. These are just two examples; other medical applications exist, and their number will undoubtedly increase. Indeed, we have already mentioned the use of transgenic plants as a source for edible vaccines and the techniques of microfabrication applied to make miniature process facilities for rapid DNA analysis to allow genome analysis ...