Why Biology Is Not Considered an Engineering Discipline — and Why I Disagree

My earliest encounter with biology was in high school, where it was divided into botany and zoology. At the time, the dominant theme in our textbooks was classification—plants, animals, tissues, and neatly drawn diagrams meant to be memorized. Like many students, I felt that living systems, which literally sustain our lives and lifestyles, were reduced to labels on a page. This stood in sharp contrast to physics, chemistry, and mathematics, where we were taught Newton’s laws, reaction rates and kinetics, calculus, and—crucially—why these ideas worked. Biology, by comparison, felt descriptive rather than explanatory.

I am 35 now, and while writing this, I revisited the current textbooks from my state board. There have been noticeable improvements—better visuals, the use of color, and a stronger emphasis on areas such as genetics and biotechnology. Yet this is where the story largely ends. Students who study biology in classes 10 and 12 overwhelmingly move toward medical degrees, while those who choose engineering often leave biology behind entirely. In almost every class I teach, I ask a simple question: how many students studied biology in high school? More often than not, only a handful—if any—raise their hands.

Even today, despite unprecedented access to information, biology and biotechnology continue to be seen as second-tier disciplines compared to core engineering fields. Many engineering students readily pursue minors in computer science, AI, physics, or chemistry, but very few seriously consider biotechnology or biology-driven domains. I understand why. Jobs today are heavily concentrated in a few sectors, while biotech roles are fewer, and often not as immediately high-paying. This is the reality, and it is a valid concern.

However, I do not believe this is the only reason engineers shy away from biology. What has always made me uneasy is how biology is perceived—as less rigorous, less “cool,” or less engineering-oriented than other engineering fields. My hypothesis is that this perception stems from how biology is still largely taught: as a descriptive subject rather than a quantitative one. This, in my view, is not a limitation of biology itself, but a failure of how the discipline has been framed and taught. As an instructor of a course on Biochemical Engineering, I am also certain that I share responsibility in shaping this perception—and that is something I am actively reflecting on.

Zoology often meant drawing a neat picture of the heart and labeling valves, arteries, and veins. But then what? As a chemical engineer, I now see the heart as a finely tuned fluid transport system governed by pressure gradients and flow resistance. The same was true for metabolism and photosynthesis. The Krebs cycle felt like a long list of reactions that simply “happened,” with little discussion of why each step existed, what constraints shaped the pathway, or how kinetics and energetics controlled the flow of matter and energy. In hindsight, my eventual engagement with both engineering and biology feels less like a planned choice and more like a fortunate accident—one that could have happened much earlier with a different framing.

With time and training, my perspective has changed completely. I now see a cell as a complex chemical reactor, where each compartment functions like a unit operation and material streams flow between them, coupled through multiple entry points, exits, and nonlinear feedback loops. Viewed this way, cellular behavior is no longer mysterious; it becomes a problem of balances, rates, and constraints—familiar territory for engineers. This shift in perspective matters because biology today is no longer just something we observe; it is something we can increasingly design. Advances in protein engineering and AI-driven protein design now allow us to create proteins that bind specific targets, catalyze reactions, or assemble into functional structures. Doing this reliably requires us to understand molecular interactions in quantitative terms—binding energetics, reaction kinetics, and transport at the molecular scale.

Maybe one final example—before I completely lose your patience—would be evolution. When viewed through an engineering lens, evolution resembles a large-scale optimization problem under constraints. Given Earth’s conditions, organisms were forced to adapt or perish. We survived, largely by chance. Today, however, we face challenges such as climate change, microplastic contamination, and other environmental stressors that are already affecting us. If we can understand biological systems quantitatively, can we accelerate adaptation—or at least design interventions that help us survive under these new constraints?

India has excellent doctors, outstanding biologists, and amazing engineers. What we lack (In my opinion) are hybrids—engineers who are comfortable thinking in biological terms and biologists who are comfortable with quantitative frameworks. If we are serious about building sustainable materials, healthcare solutions, and environmental technologies, this gap must be addressed. While core fields offer faster and higher-paying jobs today, biology-driven engineering is where many of the hardest and most important problems of the future lie. Someone has to work on them. If we all wait for incentives to appear first, we will always be followers, not innovators.

Through this blog, which I have been wanting to start for a long time, I hope to revisit biological concepts that once felt boring or inaccessible and reinterpret them in ways that engineers can relate to. Whether I succeed or not remains to be seen, but I am willing to take that chance. If we do not start engaging seriously with biology, we risk being left behind—not because we lacked intelligence, but because we lacked the courage to step outside the safest career paths.

P.S. The ideas shared here are entirely my own. I have used AI tools only to improve the language and help organize my thoughts more clearly.