Course Planning
BioE 10 is the start of the bioengineering major partly to help you understand the broad field so that you can plan your class schedule. All students share the same foundation in early years, but will diverge in later years to pursue concentrations of interest. This page is meant to be a brief orientation to the major, but please check official requirements, which may change over time.
Official UC Berkeley Bioengineering (undergraduate) resources
- Undergraduate program & curriculum — requirements, fundamentals, design, and technical electives.
- Concentrations overview → Biomedical Devices · Biomedical Imaging · Cell & Tissue Engineering · Computational & Synthetic Biology — each with a sample 4-year schedule.
- Berkeley Engineering — Bioengineering degree requirements and the Academic Guide catalog entry.
- Berkeley Discovery — Bioengineering major map — a semester-by-semester plan.
- Course descriptions and current offerings: the Academic Guide and the Schedule of Classes.
Core classes
This course and BioE 26 introduce the field, and you’ll take a core math, chemistry, and physics sequence and a set of core bioengineering courses. With this foundation, upper-division classes will allow you to concentrate in the specific areas you are most interested in.
| BioE 10 | Introduction to Biomedicine for Engineers |
| BioE 26 | Introduction to Bioengineering (seminar) |
| Math 1A/1B, 53, 54 | Calculus, linear algebra & differential equations |
| Physics 7A/7B | Physics for scientists and engineers |
| Chem 1A/1AL, 3A/3AL | General & organic chemistry |
| BioE 25 | Careers in Biotechnology (seminar) |
| BioE 11 | Engineering Molecules 1 |
| BioE 100 | Ethics in Science and Engineering |
| 2 Fundamentals + 1 Design + 1 Laboratory | Concentration-specific — see below |
Four concentrations
We offer four major concentrations that align with faculty expertise and research. Courses in these concentrations allow you to specialize.
Cell & Tissue Engineering
Understanding and modifying the behavior of cells and tissues in health and disease — tissue and organ replacement, regenerative and stem-cell therapies, biomaterials, and biomechanics.
Representative courses
BioE 102 BioE 103 BioE 104 BioE 110 BioE 114 BioE 115
Technical electives
BioE 111 BioE 112 BioE C118 BioE 124 BioE 150 BioE C136L
Laboratory
BioE 115 Tissue Engineering Lab
BioE C136L Laboratory in the Mechanics of Organisms
Biomedical Devices
Diagnostics, lab-on-a-chip, microfluidics, drug delivery. This combines device engineering and instrumentation with cell biology.
Representative courses
BioE 101 BioE 103 BioE 104 BioE 105 BioE 110 BioE 121/121L
Technical electives
BioE C118 BioE 150 BioE 151 BioE 163 BioE 168L
Laboratory
BioE 121L BioMEMS and Bionanotechnology Laboratory
BioE 101 Instrumentation in Biology and Medicine
Biomedical Imaging
Advanced imaging technologies and the signal- and image-processing used.
Representative courses
BioE 101 BioE 105 BioE 110 BioE C165 BioE 168L BioE 265
Technical electives
BioE 114 NucE 162 EE 117 EE 118
Laboratory
BioE 163L Molecular and Cellular Biophotonics Laboratory
BioE 168L Practical Light Microscopy
Computational & Synthetic Biology
Designing and building new biological functions for drug discovery, sustainable manufacturing, and personalized medicine. Uses genetic engineering and computation.
Representative courses
BioE 103 BioE 104 BioE 114 BioE 131 BioE 134 BioE 135 BioE 147 BioE 148
Electives drawn from
CS 70 CS 176 CS 186 CS 188 CS 189 Stat 132–134 MCB 110 MCB 140
Laboratory
BioE 140L Synthetic Biology Lab
BioE C131 Intro to Computational Molecular and Cell Biology