Developing a New Course to Introduce Molecular Biology to Environmental Engineers

Technology from molecular biology increasingly is used by engineers to monitor biological unit operations.  Training engineering students in molecular biology represents a significant challenge to engineering education.  At the University of Cincinnati, the author has developed a new course, “Molecular Methods in Environmental Engineering.”  This course employs a team project to teach graduate engineering students the fundamentals of molecular biology as quantitative measurement tools used to improve existing designs and explore new biological unit operations.