Engineering for Life Sciences: A Fruitful Collaboration Enabled by Chemistry

摘要

“… The interaction of engineering and life sciences has a long history that is characterized by a mutual dependency. The role of chemistry in these developments is to connect the engineers’ instrumentation with the life scientists’ specimens. This very successful partnership will further continue to produce essential and innovative solutions for future challenges …” Read more in the Guest Editorial by Christof M. Niemeyer. Engineers need life sciences because the products they develop are for humans. One example concerns the automotive industry. Since the beginning of the 19th century, it has developed from the curiosity of steam-powered vehicles to today's mass production, which is one of the major pillars of our economic system. Cars are not only sold because of practical considerations, but also for emotional reasons. The enormous impact of customer psychology on the choice of products is also evident for many other of today's high-end products, for instance, in the consumer electronics market. It is therefore not surprising that development of consumer goods devotes a large amount of energy to the exploration and optimization of sensory impressions. Although the exact biological mechanisms of such complex emotional decision-making processes are poorly understood, it seems reasonable that their exploration could lead to novel strategies in product development and marketing: smart surfaces could create optimal touch impressions or bioelectronic noses and other sensors could adjust the odor, acoustics, and climate inside a car to meet the individual needs of the driver. The development of materials and biochemical sensors are typical key domains of chemistry. But the life sciences also need engineers in order to understand life. The probably most well-known example is the development of the microscope. Since its introduction around 1600, it has opened the doors to modern biology: milestones such as optimized spherically shaped lenses, which enabled the discovery of microorganisms, and the systematic implementation of novel physical principles led to an arsenal of modern confocal, fluorescence, electron, and scanning-probe microscopes. They represent a brilliant piece of advanced engineering sciences, which was always driven by the growing demand for these instruments in biology and medicine. Innumerable routine optical tests in biomedical diagnostics and therapy would be inconceivable today without these devices. The role of chemistry in these developments is to connect the engineers’ instrumental hardware with the life scientists’ specimens. In the area of microscopy, this particularly concerns dyes and other labeling reagents, which are particularly important for superresolution microscopy (recognized with the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry). Special light-switchable molecules play an important role for the most effective use of the hardware to enable, for instance, the imaging of intracellular signal cascades in live cells and tissues in real time and with almost molecular resolution. Another example to illustrate the dependency of biological research on modern engineering concerns the sequencing of nucleic acids. Based on the classical Sanger method, substantial instrumental improvements of this technique, based on fluorescent nucleotide reagents, allowed the sequencing of the human genome to be completed in the early 2000s. However, only the establishment of entirely novel, so-called “next-generation sequencing” methods opened a new age. Engineering was crucial for this breakthrough and contributed highest-resolution single-molecule optics, or micro- and nanofluidics for maximum sample throughput. But chemistry played an essential role by delivering tailored molecules for completely new sequencing approaches based on biochemical synthesis or the translocation through nanopores. The further elaboration of these technical systems will revolutionize our understanding of molecular mechanisms of diseases, or the biochemical in