What Is Bioengineering?
Bioengineering is an interdisciplinary field that applies engineering principles to problems in biology, human health, and medicine. Because of its broad scope, bioengineers often develop expertise across multiple STEM disciplines, including biology, chemistry, chemical engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, materials science, mechanical engineering, physics, and bioinformatics.
For this competition, we focus on two major subfields of bioengineering: Biological Engineering and Medical (Biomedical) Engineering.
Biological Engineering
Biological Engineering (sometimes called Bioengineering) applies engineering approaches to the life and natural sciences. From an engineering perspective, this subfield focuses on designing, analyzing, and modifying biological systems. Typical work includes gene editing, cell culturing, protein modeling, pipetting, DNA sequencing, gel electrophoresis, and PCR. The goal is to translate biological observations into engineered solutions.
Biological engineering encompasses areas such as biomaterials, nanotechnology, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, synthetic biology, computational biology, and metabolic engineering. At UC Berkeley, this field is further divided into the Cell & Tissue Engineering concentration and the Computational & Synthetic Biology concentration.
Applications of biological engineering have led to many commercialized products, including genetically modified organisms (GMOs), synthesized pharmaceuticals, gene therapies, probiotics, biofuels, improved crops, plant-based meat alternatives, biodegradable materials, and cosmetics.
Common career paths in biological engineering include R&D Scientist, Postdoctoral Researcher, Physician, Biostatistician, and Bioinformatician.
Medical (Biomedical) Engineering
Medical Engineering, also known as Biomedical Engineering, applies engineering principles to healthcare, medicine, and clinical biology. From an engineering standpoint, this subfield involves designing circuits and PCBs, developing algorithms, analyzing physiological signals, and prototyping biomedical devices such as BCI, EMG, EEG, and medical imaging systems.
The central goal of medical engineering is to apply physical and computational engineering design to the human body to assist patients and improve disease diagnosis and treatment. Key areas of study include biomechanics, prosthetics, medical instrumentation, medical imaging, and device design. At UC Berkeley, Biomedical Engineering is further divided into the Biomedical Devices concentration and the Medical Imaging concentration.
Examples of medical engineering innovations include heart stents, pacemakers, neural prosthetics, rapid diagnostic devices, and 3D-printed tissues.
Career paths related to medical engineering include Biomedical Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Mechanical Engineer, Systems Engineer, Physician, Data Scientist, and Software/Hardware Engineer.
About the Bioengineering Undergraduate Program
For students interested in applying to UC Berkeley as a bioengineering major, here are some stats about the Bioengineering Undergraduate Program:
UC Berkeley's Undergraduate Bioengineering Program is ranked 8th in the nation according to US News.
The Bioengineering major is under the College of Engineering (COE), while the Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) and Integrative Biology (IB) major is under the College of Letter of Science. UC Berkeley offers a Bioengineering Program, not a Biomedical Engineering Program. There are four concentrations of classes (Biomedical Device, Biomedical Imaging, Cell & Tissue Engineering, and Computational & Synthetic Biology) from which students are free to take class from.
As of the Fall 2024 term, there were 2996 applicants and 235 admits (7.84%) for the Bioengineering Undergraduate Program.
As of Fall 2025, Bioengineering (449 students, 10.2%) is the third largest major under COE, right behind EECS (1625 undergraduate students, 37.07%) and Mechanical Engineering (844 undergraduate students, 19.25%).
According to bioengineering staff, rising applicant numbers were matched by higher applicant quality. If you are interested in applying to the program, you can email BioEHSC™ competition chairs for more information at bioehsc@gmail.com or visit the department website at http://bioeng.berkeley.edu/.