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Introduction The objective of the Bioengineering and Environmental Health course is to show how basic science and engineering tools are used in a coordinated way to solve public health problems. These problems range from those of environmental pollution from industrial sources to the configuration of a biotechnology-based company. This is a highly interdisciplinary course where the students work in groups to tackle specific issues. As a result, the students are not only exposed to diverse concepts in biology, chemistry and engineering but also learn to communicate and work in an interdisciplinary team. This course is very popular at MIT, and each year we try to identify a pharmaceutical product that is of current interest in the field. Past drug products include human growth hormone, erythropoeitin, tissue plasminogen activator, leptin, taxol, viagra and beta-interferon. At MIT, approximately 30% of the students taking the course are freshmen, and they use the course to help them decide on their major area of study for the upperclass years. Students taking the course later in their career typically use it to give them a view of what life is like beyond MIT, usually in industry. This year we decided to teach the course in Thailand for several reasons. First, there is a long and scientifically distinguished history of collaboration between MIT and the Thais. In the early 1960s, the MITHAI program was established in which chemists, epidemiologists and medical scientists converged to determine if a toxin structurally identified by Gerald Wogan and George Buchi at MIT, aflatoxin B1, were the etiologic agent in liver cancer then endemic in Asia. That work not only was a milestone in the development of the modern field of toxicology, but it also trained a generation of scientists, both Thai and American, who have continued a commitment to the study of problems affecting developing countries. One student involved in that program, Professor Mathuros Ruchirawat, has maintained close contact with MIT over the years and acted with her colleagues to secure funding for a postgraduate program that will, once again, train Thais and other southeast Asians in toxicology. She asked two of us, John Essigmann and Ram Sasisekharan, to participate in the inaugural offering of this course. In the 40 years since the aflatoxin study began, the problems affecting the Thais and their neighbors have changed. One major problem is that of AIDS, so we decided to have the course this year focus on HIV as a disease target and HIV protease inhibitors as the primary drug target to be manufactured in Thailand. The course began with introductory lectures by Professors Essigmann and Sasisekharan, Research Engineer Dr. Ganesh Venkataraman and Instructor Dr. Maria Kartalou. Following a general outline on the course objectives, two diseases- AIDS and Diabetes were introduced to the class. Introductory lectures on history of biotechnology, principles of drug discovery, development, regulatory affairs and intellectual property were delivered. A virtual company focusing on AIDS with four divisions was set up by the students. The four divisions are Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, Marketing, Production and Ethics. The students were divided into these four groups. The Clinical Group described the biological basis of the target disease and identified clinical options that could cut into our market. The Marketing Group attempted to determine how many people have the target diseases. They also determined how much of the respective drugs to produce. The Group was sensitive to the realities of health care delivery costs in the developing world. The Production Group used engineering methodology to design an industrial plant in Thailand to produce the amount of drug requested by the Marketing group. The Ethics Group probed ethical and social issues that exist surrounding the use of the drug. The students in each of the groups picked specific topics to work on in the context of the overall objective. The students were from Chulabhorn Research Institute, AIT, and Mahidol University. In order to facilitate good communication not only between the students but also the faculty at MIT, a dedicated web site for the course was developed. This website served as the central communication mode between the different student groups and also with the MIT faculty. A password protected site was developed for the student to post reports, queries, information or anything if interest for the class. This remote interaction was in addition to the weekly classes that the students attended, where they presented their findings through formal presentations. The slides and the discussions to the presentations were made available to the MIT faculty through the web site for their active participation during the course. In addition, the students submitted electronically progress reports and the instructors commented on their work and suggested alternative ways of approaching their topic. The report starts with information on how this course was taught with extensive use of a website to facilitate distance learning. The report contains a package of introductory information on HIV and the protease inhibitor, and then progresses to the students’ report. At the final presentation Monday evening (July 24th, 2000), two to three students from each of the four groups will summarize the results of their group.