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Research and Resources

Nowhere is Lehigh’s culture of collaboration more evident than in its programs related to the life sciences and biotechnology. Expertise and facilities are shared freely across departments and disciplines, resulting in greater opportunities for students to identify and engage in aspects of the field that spark their interests.

Projects take advantage of new state-of-the-art laboratories in biostructural mechanics, bioelectronics/biophotonics, and biotechnology. These labs, and others, provide instrumentation to faculty research and student projects — everything from tissue culture incubators and microscopes with micromanipulation capabilities, to the latest in imaging hardware and software and data acquisition.

Examples of projects pursued by Lehigh engineers in this area include the following:

  • Computational models of the human lung to help combat ventilator-induced lung injury (VILI), a phenomenon that severely complicates treatment of hospital patients being assisted by mechanical ventilators
  • Artificial tissue through cellular engineering, for repairing of severely damaged skin
  • "Microarrays" that allow genomics researchers to more efficiently identify and evaluate DNA sequences
  • The design and fabrication of microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMs) that sense changes in a cell’s electrical activity, leading to biomedical applications as well as potential in bioterrorism defense
  • Development of bandaged-sized sensors that monitor chemical levels in a patient’s bloodstream and report the information to medical professionals via satellite communications
  • Manipulation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by using DNA molecules to assist in sorting and placing the tubes, with enormous ramifi cations in nanoelectronics, medicine, biosensing, and the strengthening of composite materials.


List of Research Centers, Laboratories, & Institutes:

  • Center for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology
  • Center for Manufacturing Systems Engineering
  • Center for Optical Technologies
  • Center for Polymer Science and Engineering
  • Chemical Process Modeling and Control Research Center
  • Emulsion Polymers Institute
  • Energy Research Center
  • Engineering Research Center for Advanced Technology & Large Structural Systems (ATLSS)
  • Industrial Assessment Center
  • Institute for Metal Forming
  • Sherman Fairchild Center for Solid-State Studies