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The Synergy between Biology and Engineering
Engineering can aid biology through analysis, instrumentation, and repair (medicine). Biology can aid engineering through bio-inspired design.
The positive-feedback loop created by this two-way interaction can amplify and speed progress in both disciplines and shed insight into both.
Our group has and continues to actively work on the beauty, art, and practicality of such synergy as illustrated by our various projects on molecular, systems, and synthetic biology, cochlear implants, brain-machine interfaces, cardiac monitoring, and ultra-energy efficient systems.
Our group’s vision is outlined in detail in
Professor Sarpeshkar’s book.
How Ultra Energy Efficient Operation is Achieved
Information is represented by the states of physical devices. It costs energy to transform or maintain the states of these physical devices.
Thus, energy and information are deeply linked. It is this deep link that allows
Professor Sarpeshkar’s book
to articulate ten information-based principles for ultra-energy-efficient design that apply to biology or to electronics, to analog or to digital systems,
to electrical or to non-electrical systems, at small scales or at large scales.
The graphical languages of circuits and feedback serve as powerful unifying tools to understand or to design low-power systems
that range from molecular networks in cells to biomedical implants in the brain to energy-efficient cars.
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