Biomolecular engineering is an emerging discipline in which scientists apply engineering principles (e.g., thermodynamics, kinetics, computational modeling) to biological molecules. Tools including recombinant DNA techniques, site-specific mutagenesis, polymer-chain reaction, and gene-editing tools involving Crispr-Cas9 are being used to both understand biology as well as to develop vaccines and therapeutics, drug-delivery systems, biomaterials, and processes to produce chemicals inside microorganisms.
This special section will open with an introduction article that provides an overview of the field of biomolecular engineering, highlights the various tools that engineers and scientists are using, and discusses applications for these tools. This will be followed by several articles that dive deeper into a particular application or tool. Topics for these articles are: Immunotherapy; Vaccine Development; Metabolic Engineering for the Production of Chemicals, Fuels, and Precursors, and Single-Cell Analytical Technologies.