Engineering and the life sciences have a mutual need for collaboration, for example in the use of engineering know-how for the development of microscopes for biology and medicine. But it is chemistry that is needed to fully connect these two disciplines.

In his Editorial in Angewandte Chemie, Christof M. Niemeyer, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany, outlines how chemistry is needed to unite the hardware built by engineers with the samples that life scientists need to analyze. For example, chemists develop the dyes that are used in superresolution imaging, or the molecules for new sequencing approaches.

Chemistry is key in building functional interfaces between machines and organisms, including biocompatible materials or flexible electronics for printing onto tissues. The alliance of engineering and life sciences through chemistry is thus a very successful partnership.

• Engineering for Life Sciences: A Fruitful Collaboration Enabled by Chemistry,
  Christof M. Niemeyer,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201611865