<p>
</p>
<p>BME is technically not a separate engineering discipline, it is the application of ANY engineering discipline to the field of medicine: mechanical, electrical, chemical… This is why MIT has never given BME the status of a separate department. There is no generally recognized BME training or scientific foundation to BME as medical applications will involve a wide variety of scientific disciplines. Building pacemakers, prostheses or new biomaterials involve completely different skills. It is an interdisciplinary effort. At MIT there are more engineers across departments involved in biomedical applications than at JHU or Duke even though they would not characterize themselves as biomedical engineers.</p>
<p>Biological engineering is to biology what chemical engineering is to chemistry: the application to ALL fields of biological processes and principles, not just to medicine. Biotechnology can be used for environmental applications, to develop new types of foods, materials or drugs. Just as chemical engineering was first introduced by MIT at the beginning of the last century, MIT has also pioneered the field of biological engineering which is starting to mushroom across the country. It is also the fastest growing engineering discipline with some of the highest paid engineers.</p>