Suresh discusses the role of engineering in the study of infectious disease
Although engineering has long played a key role in developing technology for diagnosing and treating human disease, it has only recently started to have an impact on understanding the cellular and molecular basis of disease. In the past decade or so, engineers have started making major contributions to understanding diseases such as malaria, hereditary blood diseases and cancer, according to Subra Suresh, former dean of MIT's School of Engineering.In a talk at MIT on Thursday, Dec. 9, Suresh, who is on leave as the Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at MIT and is now director of the National Science Foundation, outlined several ways in which interdisciplinary research has led to new understanding of human disease, especially malaria.Suresh was chosen to give the first David B. Schauer Lecture, established to honor the MIT professor of biological engineering, who died in June 2009. Schauer devoted his career to the study of bacterial...