Engineering has made vast contributions to health and medicine, from designing water and sewer systems that have saved millions of lives to optimizing healthcare delivery systems and creating ever more sophisticated medical devices. New applications of evolutionary biology to medicine are now giving rise to new opportunities for engineering to enhance understanding of disease. Projects that bring engineering expertise to bear on the questions addressed by evolutionary medicine promise major advances.

According to safety experts, more than 90% of motor vehicle crashes involve driver error,[1] and many believe that replacing drivers with automation could significantly reduce the number of crashes. Well-considered automation could compensate for human susceptibilities such as fatigue, distraction, and impairment that contribute to crashes, and thus greatly reduce the loss of nearly 40,000 lives every year on US streets and highways. Read more in a Perspective by Christopher A. Hart, founder of Hart Solutions LLC and former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.

Moderna spent a decade combining chemical, systems, and bio engineering advances to create the mRNA platform for its COVID-19 vaccine. On November 15, 2020, after 4 months in large-scale Phase 3 clinical testing, Moderna received resounding proof that its new class of medicines based on messenger RNA encased in lipid nanoparticles could be safely deployed as a highly effective vaccine to combat the covid-19 pandemic. Read the latest NAE Perspectives as chairman Noubar Afeyan explores lessons learned to stop other health threats.