The Case for Technobiology: A Complement to Biotechnology

Abstract

Engineering has and will continue to have a critical impact on healthcare; the application of technology-based techniques to biological problems can be defined to be technobiology — it can be considered to be the complement to biotechnology, an all too encompassing and overused term. If technobiology can be thus defined, then biotechnology can be conversely defined to be the application of biology-based techniques to technical problems; as a consequence, the two complementary terms, together, can cover the increasingly expanding and complex world where technology and biology intersect. In addition to detailing the scope of technobiology, this paper expands on the technobiology approach of service systems engineering to the development of a healthcare service system that is integrated, adaptive and evidence-based; focuses on a range of example applications in regard to the technobiology areas of information, instrumentation, and insertion; underscores, as an example, the collaborative technobiology efforts between the College of Engineering and the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami; and concludes with some additional insights.