Biomolecular Engineering

Biomolecular engineering is an emerging field of academic research and industrial practice having the goal of engineering value-added biomolecules and biomolecular processes for applications in medical, chemical, agricultural, and food industries. This new subject is very broad and highly interdisciplinary, including, but is not limited to, protein engineering, metabolic engineering, bioinformatics, bioprocessing, gene therapy, drug design, discovery and delivery, biomaterials, and nano-biotechnology. In the past decades, biomolecules such as protein pharmaceuticals, DNA vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and industrial enzymes have been increasingly commercialized. In this entry, the key concepts and technologies in biomolecular engineering and their applications in engineering proteins, pathways, and nucleic acids are introduced.