(513e) Biology in Che Education: Classroom and Laboratory Experiments in the University of California, Davis Curriculum

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at UC Davis has had a distinct Biochemical Engineering major/program for over twelve years. As part of the curriculum for this major, several courses were created or expanded to parallel courses in the traditional chemical engineering curriculum. In addition to a fermentation course and a bioseparations course, students in the major take a course on biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility design and a biochemical engineering laboratory course, along with a senior design project focused on the production of a biological molecule. After an overview of this unique program at Davis, we will first focus this presentation on the course activities of the biopharmaceutical manufacturing course. These activities include a quarter-long group design project for a specific piece of equipment, in-class and in-pilot plant ?hands-on? demonstrations of specific pieces of equipment, and highly-directed tours of commercial development and manufacturing facilities. Next, we will discuss the biochemical engineering laboratory course which includes a series of bench scale experiments covering both fermentation-based and downstream-processing-based activities. Finally, we will discuss how successful laboratory experiments from the biochemical engineering curriculum have been adapted for the traditional chemical engineering curriculum at Davis.