About This Department

Department: School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy & Biodesign Institute
Insitution: Arizona State University
  Tempe, AZ
 

The Biodesign Institute is designed to promote transdisciplinary science that is inspired by biology and focused on driving towards translational solutions. At the Biodesign Institute, we assemble large, scientifically diverse teams to galvanize great ideas into real-world solutions. We fuse the talents of over 900 affiliates, including faculty, staff, students and collaborators whose expertise spans engineering, the biosciences, medicine, computing, economics, public policy and management. This allows us to consider the scalability, affordability and societal implications of the solutions we pursue. Since its inception, Biodesign has recruited more than sixty tenured and research faculty, among them one Nobel Laureate, four National Academy members and four Fellows of AAAS. The national award winning Biodesign Institute facility has been designed to allow for maximum flexibility in the setup of specific laboratory space. Fourteen different research centers support a unique repertoire of research capabilities and equipment, with translational challenges that range from Evolutionary Medicine and Bioinformatics to Environmental Biosecurity, and from Biosensors and Bioelectronics to Personalized Diagnostics. The Institute has amassed a powerful range of analytical capabilities to pursue research goals that require the fusion of formerly distinct scientific disciplines. Some of these goals include identifying biomarkers of disease, using molecular genetics and comparative genomics to answer fundamental questions in biology, developing new vaccines to battle infectious disease, developing bioassays for point-of-care diagnostics, and mimicking nature in the production of materials, catalysts, and sensors. This has entailed the acquisition of hundreds of Gigaflops of computing power, equipment and space for microfabrication and nanoimprinting, the engineering of microbial reactors, the development of high-throughput assays of biologically relevant molecules, the ability to combine nanomaterials, biomaterials, and electronic transducers, and the infrastructure and approval to work with level 2 and level 3 pathogens. A solid IT support group provides hardware, application development, and server administration, and maintains a 1 Gbps network.