Difference between Biological Engineering, Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering

milki · 03-24-2007, 09:27 AM

I've seen many threads that classify Biomedical Engineering under Bioengineering (and vice-versa) so I was seeking a some clarification.

Biological - Engineering on a cellular level

Biomedical - Traditional Engineering applied to Human Body

Bio - Facets of Both

Right ?

milki · 03-26-2007, 03:54 PM

Anyone.... ?

Corbett · 03-26-2007, 04:18 PM

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioengineering:

Quote:

Biological engineering (also biosystems engineering and bioengineering) deals with engineering biological processes in general. It is a broad-based engineering discipline that also may involve product design, sustainability and analysis of biological systems. Generally, bioengineering may deal with either the medical (see biomedical engineering) or the agricultural fields (see agricultural engineering).

Furthermore:

Quote:

Biological engineering is called Bioengineering by some colleges and Biomedical engineering is called Bioengineering by others, and is a rapidly developing field with fluid categorization.

So don't expect consistent terminology between different programs at different schools.

abhim89 · 03-26-2007, 05:01 PM

millki you have the right idea (biomedical is classic mech/electrical/chemical engineering applied to the human body, bio/biological engineering is more on the cellular level)... really, they are all virtually indistinguishable in academia

s1185 · 03-26-2007, 07:02 PM

this has been asked multiple times. please do a search of thread titles for these terms.

at the undergraduate level, there is essentially no difference

milki · 03-26-2007, 07:16 PM

I did try a search but I either get no matches or an error

Quote:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 82 bytes) in /var/www/localhost/htdocs/includes/functions.php on line 51

s1185 · 03-27-2007, 01:30 AM

be sure to limit to threat title and the "engineering major" forum. google works too.

milki · 03-27-2007, 12:27 PM

Thanks. I think I found some decent stuff

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c...om&btnG=Search

evoke1080 · 03-30-2007, 02:06 PM

It all depends on the college. The fields are too new and too interdiciplinary for any definitions to stick. What is bioengineering at one school might be Biomedical Engineering at another. Some schools have both for historical/funding reasons.

milki · 03-30-2007, 02:34 PM

So how can one know what is ? Look at the course descriptions ?

urrjun · 03-30-2007, 05:27 PM

I feel like Bioengineering is more ME based, and biomedical eng is a little more physiology related.

I think it totally depends on what your concentration area is. For biomed you could be doing anything from motion analysis to cell-based therapies...Itd be nice if there was a way to see exactly what careers people go into afterwards, besides just product design. So many people in my class are going into law, which is not a bad idea.

evoke1080 · 03-31-2007, 10:55 PM

"So how can one know what is ? Look at the course descriptions ?"

Yeah, that's exactly what you have to do. Every college has a different take on what BME/BioE means. Some schools have you take mechanics courses with mechEs, others have biomechanics courses just for BME. Some schools focus more on the engineering side of BME others focus more on the biological. Most programs have a core of basic general engineering courses and you can take electives to focus on the parts that you're most interested in (mechanics, electronics, signals, chemistry, etc...) The one thing you must look for is that the school had a good track record of placing BMEs since the field is much newer and smaller than the other disciplines.

abhim89 · 03-31-2007, 11:30 PM

in addition to looking at course descriptions, take a look at how the curriculum is structured. some schools (JHU comes to mind) literally force you to concentrate in another field of engineering as you study biomedical engineering. therefore, your courseload will start to look like one of the more "established" engineering fields (electrical, mechanical, chemical etc) and provide a good skillset for a job following graduation. other schools will provide a more balanced curriculum that will expose you equally to all the fields of biomedical engineering and provide a good basis for graduate school specialization. there are, of course, variations in the middle of those two extremes. (classic battle of breadth vs depth)

Personally, I chose a school with a balanced combination of breadth and depth because I know that while I am really interested in certain sub-fields of bioengineering, I don't intend to pursue a technical career...

milki · 04-02-2007, 08:25 AM

Thanks again

niceilike · 07-13-2007, 04:53 PM

recently had a chat with a chairman of UC riverside's bioengineering department-he says all are identical, just look at the research the faculty is doing to figure out a school's focus. or-the background of the department chair. for example, douglas lauffenburger at MIT is a cell biologist, therefore they're program focuses on the cellular level, whereas at Umich, the focus in BE is on electrical engineering.