Thursday, August 21, 2008

The grand challenges for engineering

   According to the article of Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering on
http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/cms/8996/9221.aspx, nowadays, engineers have several main challenges to be solved. There are sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living. 
   
   The challenge that interests me most is health. As the population keeps growing, the demand for health service is increasing. Unfortunately, the population growth surpasses the growth in the number of health services. There are some engineerstasks to overcome this dilemma.

   The engineers are required to develop a system which diagnoses a disease faster. They may create a device to access patients' genetic information quickly. By this way, doctors may recognize patients' diseases in a short time. Moreoever, engineers need to build a system which is able to manage and access the patients' data faster and more effectively.

   Nowadays, the world is attempting to develop synthetic biology. It is a study of regenerating tissues. It is expected to be able to create new and fresh tissues to replace damaged ones. The engineers play an important role to realize it. Besides inventing numerous systems, engineers need to find ways to create diagnostic devices to be affordable. One of the examples is gene chips functioned in detecting chemical substances in the patientsblood.

   In conclusion, the engineers have to face big challenges in improving people's health . They are also required to invent the device with inexpensive cost.