Life Sciences Engineering

专业详情

The pace of technological advance in biology and medicine – across fields like data analysis, computer modelling or bio-imaging – is driving the development of new therapies and new diagnostic and measurement tools. Life sciences engineers design the instruments necessary for understanding and applying these technologies to the very latest therapeutic methods.

The study of life ranks among the fields which have benefited the most from the rapid technological advances of these past few years. It is a difficult task to try to identify one single discipline which is responsible for the progress that can be seen. In fact, it is the combination of various factors, in theory treated independently of one another, which is the root cause. As a result of the application of discoveries in physics, the improvement of quantitative-observation techniques has led to a sizable increase in the volume of available information.

As well as this expansion, the nature of the information has become such that it would be impossible to think about analyzing it without automated processing. This involves the development of mathematical algorithms and increasing the power of computers, all made possible by miniaturized electronic components manufactured with more specialized materials. This miniaturization has, moreover, encouraged the development of more efficient sensors. The study and understanding of life must therefore now take place through accurate observations, meaning that technology has to be known and controlled.

The training provided at EPFL stands at the interface between life sciences and engineering disciplines. It is evolving towards a quantitative approach to biological phenomena: we are no longer satisfied with observing them but we also want to measure them. This method involves an increasing use of computer modeling: thanks to the simulation of the behavior of an ever-growing number of living organisms, it is possible to speed up discovery processes. The number of some experiments, often costly and lengthy, is therefore decreasing. This approach is reflected in the field of life sciences through decoding the human genome, a better understanding of complex biological systems, regenerative medicine (reactivation of cellular or tissue functions) or gene therapy (attempts to correct genetic errors causing major diseases).