New Directions for Chemical Engineering (2022) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 109-140
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From page 109... ...
Of critical importance is to evaluate the cost and sustainability of new concepts using systems-level life-cycle assessment while taking account of the role of local environmental conditions and traditions. Food Engineering Chemical engineers have led in adapting the tools of molecular and systems biology for applications in diverse areas; however, the application of these methods to food engineering is in its early stages.
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From page 110... ...
In higher-income countries, the sustainability of food production and packaging is a major concern that can be addressed through the use of nonfood containers to hold food during shipping or storage and edible coatings that can be applied to food to prolong shelf life. Chemical engineers are well suited to the challenging task of applying systems-level life-cycle assessment to the development of solutions in these areas.
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From page 111... ...
Other air pollutants include CO2 and other GHGs, which are discussed further in the context of energy (Chapter 3) and the circular economy (Chapter 6)
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From page 112... ...
. Anthropogenic aerosols include those from fossil fuels (e.g., those composed of sulfates)
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From page 113... ...
, electrostatic filters and precipitators, and wet scrubbers, all of which were developed with the help of chemical engineers. Moving forward, chemical engineers have an opportunity to minimize and eliminate the formation of air pollutants at the source.
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From page 114... ...
114 New Directions for Chemical Engineering BOX 4-1 Control of Nitrogen Oxide Emissions from Diesel Engines Energy-efficient diesel-powered engines have enabled the growth and harvesting of the food supply, the mobility of people and goods over large distances, and the construction of modern infrastructure. The higher air-to-fuel ratio in diesel engines leads to lower greenhouse gas emissions relative to gasoline-powered engines, but removing NOx and soot from diesel exhaust poses formidable challenges.
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From page 115... ...
use of clean energy solutions for power generation, cooking, heating, and lighting; use of strict emissions control in waste incineration sites; and capture of CO2 emissions. In addition to these mitigating actions, chemical engineers can contribute to the fundamental understanding of aerosol formation, aerosol dynamics in the atmosphere, and their chemical characterization (e.g., Seinfeld, 1991; Seinfeld and Pandis, 2016)
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From page 116... ...
Specific opportunities for chemical engineers include precision agriculture, non–animal-based food and low-carbon-intensity food production, and reduction or elimination of food waste. Advanced agricultural practices designed to improve yield while reducing demand for both energy and water will require collaboration with other disciplines, as well as systems-level approaches such as life-cycle assessment.
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From page 117... ...
The development of disease treatments is a multidisciplinary enterprise, and chem ical engineers can contribute to many aspects of medicine by applying systems biology to physiology, the discovery and development of molecules and materials, and process development and scale-up. Many health disparities are a result of systemic issues that will require larger social changes to address, but chemical engineers can develop engineering solutions that help address disparities requiring more focused efforts.
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From page 118... ...
Following an overview of the role of biomolecular engineering in health and medicine, the chapter describes opportunities for chemical engineers to advance personalized medicine; improve therapeutics; understand the microbiome; design materials, devices, and delivery mechanisms; and develop hygiene technologies. Finally, the chapter examines how chemical engineers can contribute to addressing health disparities that result from societal inequity and reducing the costs of therapeutic treatments.
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From page 119... ...
. Notably, Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau -- the first woman to earn a PhD in chemical engineering and the first female member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE)
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From page 120... ...
represent the highest volume of sales and a major focus of drug development. These therapeutics can bind to a specific antigen and have been developed as highly specific treatments for such diseases as cancer, asthma, arthritis, Crohn's disease, migraines, and infectious diseases (Lu et al., 2020; Wells and Robinson, 2017)
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From page 121... ...
However, the repercussions of the pandemic also serve as a reminder of the importance of the availability and transport of raw materials, as well as the critical importance of scale-up of manufacturing where medicines are needed and the fact that even in higher-income countries, health disparities can result in needless deaths. The next 20 years of chemical and biomolecular engineering will feature opportunities in personalized medicine; advances in the engineering of biologic molecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, and such entities as viruses and cells; growth at the interface between materials and devices and health; the use of tools from systems and synthetic biology to understand biological networks and their intersections with data science and machine learning; development of the next steps in manufacturing; and the use of engineering approaches to address health equity and access to health care.
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From page 122... ...
The application of data science and modeling represents another opportunity for chemical engineers to contribute in this space. Small-Molecule Manufacturing For small molecules that serve as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)
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From page 123... ...
. The use of induced pluripotent stem cells has the potential to reduce patient-specific cell collection, but also requires improvements
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From page 124... ...
Computational Tools and Modeling to Improve Personalized Medicine Systems biology applied to physiology is an additional avenue for chemical engineers to contribute to personalized medicine. As early as the 1960s, Yeats and Urquhart (1962)
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From page 125... ...
ENGINEERING APPROACHES TO IMPROVING THERAPEUTICS Vaccines as Biomolecular Therapeutic Agents Although drug discovery is key to the development of new types of drugs, discovery is only the beginning of the development phase; significant challenges arise in the large-scale manufacture of drugs, including industrial-level product generation, purification, and formulation. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted some of the challenges
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From page 126... ...
Broad areas of interest include understanding of the physical and biological mechanisms underlying how the immune system functions, applied virology, and efforts that leverage this knowledge and engineering design to develop therapies and vaccines capable of being translated to the clinic. Chemical engineers are involved in the development of new vaccination concepts and the molecular design of new delivery approaches for vaccines and biologic therapies such as anti bodies, including rapid drug development and commercial scaling of proteins or protein com ponents.
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From page 127... ...
At the time that the SARS-CoV-2 virus appeared, Moderna had 10 other mRNAbased drugs approved by the FDA as Investigational New Drugs or for clinical trials, and had already launched a manufacturing facility for mRNA vaccines that were in various phases of clinical trial. Because the manufacturing machinery was already in place, the company was able to take full advantage of the highly versatile and modular nature of an mRNA vaccine, along with a significant funding stimulus from the U.S.
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From page 128... ...
A key aspect of developing a viable mRNA vaccine is the ability to systemically deliver mRNA, a highly negatively charged macromolecule, to cells that will generate proteins that are actively accessed by immune cells. The generation of an appropriate formulation using cationic lipid nanoparticles was a problem suited for chemical engineers, and finding formulations that were effective in enabling both mRNA delivery to the cell cytoplasm and simultaneous upregulation of immune cells as an adjuvant was key to the formation of a successful, effective, and commercially viable vaccine.
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From page 129... ...
Chemical engineers will play a significant role in the development of the protein engineering and computational and biomolecular design space for the discovery of new antigens. The design of antigens, including the selection of specific sequences, and the use of different kinds of molecular adjuvants can affect the immunological response by directing different cellular pathways.
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From page 130... ...
Chemical engineers can manipulate these systems on the molecular level using rapid assay methods and computation in combination with studies of manufacturing properties to achieve high yields and lower overall cost. Biomolecular engineering has had an enormous impact on therapeutic designs.
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From page 131... ...
Fundamental studies founded in the thermodynamics of water structure, influenced heavily by chemical engineers, have laid the foundation for strategies for protein stabilization. Solutions for future challenges posed by the need for nucleic acid stability can potentially leverage the knowledge generated about protein stability.
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From page 132... ...
Chemical engineers can make a vital contribution toward understanding the complex signaling and resultant biological re sponses of the body, and in applying this knowledge toward human health treatments. Systems biology approaches and the use of genomics can be deployed by engineers to describe more completely the molecular pathways and genomic networks involved in regulation of the micro biome and human host.
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From page 133... ...
. Chemical engineers can help advance these kinds of native microbiota-based therapies to a new level by addressing their expansion, cost, and scalability -- for example, by investigating isolation and purification of native microbiota to enable more consistent therapeutic products and approaches that can be readily replicated.
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From page 134... ...
It is possible to engineer quorum-sensing mechanisms that are independent and thus completely orthogonal to native commensal bacteria, thus enabling unique or independent "programs" instituted on the basis of specific cell types that will be responsive to a given quorum-sensing signal. Other mechanisms of cell–cell communications include N-acyl-L-homoserine lactones (NHL)
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From page 135... ...
. Given recent findings regarding the gut microbiome–neurological connection and the likely advances in biological understanding of both the gut and other human microbiome communities with respect to disease and overall human health, this area of technology is likely to expand significantly in the next decade.
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From page 136... ...
The unique skillsets of chemical engineers can contribute to gaining knowledge, enabling discovery, addressing disease, and enhancing human health through understanding and regulation of the human microbiome. Key challenges and opportunities include further advancement of synthetic biology tools that incorporate environmental and conditional responses, regulation of the reactome across multiple species, and engineering of cellular consortia to achieve patient-specific outcomes.
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From page 137... ...
The development of such devices requires novel formulation strategies, pump designs, control algorithms, and continuous sensors, challenges for which chemical engineers are well suited. Another exciting frontier for chemical engineering is the development of devices for completely noninvasive methods of drug delivery.
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From page 138... ...
Strategies have also been developed for enhancing noninvasive delivery of biologics through oral or inhalation routes, with enabling contributions from chemical engineers (Brown et al., 2020; Matthews et al., 2020; Morishita and Peppas, 2006)
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From page 139... ...
The most commonly used microsphere-based drug delivery systems consist of a suspension of polymer microspheres that can be delivered by subcutaneous injections. Fundamental studies describing the diffusion and degradation kinetics and mechanisms of diffusion in the polymer matrix, led by chemical engineers, have played an important role in the establishment of these systems (Ritger and Peppas, 1987)
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From page 140... ...
Can drug reactions be better understood or predicted through analysis of such massive amounts of data? Opportunities exist for chemical engineers to develop large-scale network models with which to understand the dynamics and connectivity of adverse events.
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