Description

Nanomedicine and nanobioengineering, defined respectively by the fusion of nanotechnology with medicine and bioengineering, are emerging new frontiers, presenting challenges for fundamental research and opportunities for new biotechnologies. These fields promise to have a major impact on healthcare. worldwide.They are multidisciplinary fields creating opportunities in physics, chemistry, applied sciences, engineering and biology, as well as biomedical technology and drug development.A good number of books and reviews discuss selective aspects of nanomedicine and nanobioengineering.

However, there is a need for a comprehensive monograph that provides a unified synthesis of these two fields and their joint impact on global healthcare. This book meets this need by providing an integrated overview of nanomedicine and nanobioengineering for next generation diagnostics and therapy. Our Institute’s comprehensive, multidisciplinary program in this integrated field of nanomedicine received generous early funding from the John R. Oishei Foundation in Buffalo, New York, and the resulting work provided the inspiration and much of the impetus for undertaking this writing. The aim of this book is to provide a basic understanding of a wide range of topics in an integrated manner so that people from all disciplines can quickly acquire the minimum training necessary for research and development in this field.

The author intends that this monograph serve as a textbook for education and training and as a reference book that helps research and development in areas that integrate nanotechnology with medicine and bioengineering. Another objective of the book is to stimulate the interest of researchers, industries and companies, as well as foster collaboration through multidisciplinary programs in these emerging frontiers of bioscience and biotechnology to generate a new dimension for medical care. This book covers the fundamentals of nanomaterial design, bioengineering, nanodiagnostics, and nanotherapy.

Each chapter begins with an introduction that describes what the reader will find in that chapter. Each chapter ends with highlights that are essentially the “take home message” and can serve as a review of the materials presented. In addition, exercises are provided to aid in teaching. Throughout the book, examples of our research work are given whenever possible, simply for convenience, this should be seen as complementary to the excellent work that is being done in various institutions around the world. In writing this book, which covers a wide range of topics, I received help from a large number of people at the Institute for Lasers, Photonics, and Biophotonics at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, as well as elsewhere. . This help has consisted of providing technical information, creating illustrations, providing criticism and preparing the manuscript.

A separate Acknowledgments section acknowledges these people. Here I would like to thank the people whose extensive support has been of paramount importance in completing the book. I express my sincere thanks to my colleague, Professor Paul Knight, M.D., for his unceasing help and encouragement. I am grateful to Dr. Indrajit Roy, Dr. Andrey Kuzmin, Dr. Wing Cheung Law, and Dr. Artem Pliss for their valuable support and technical assistance throughout the book. I am grateful to my administrative assistant, Ms. Margie Weber, for her encouragement and for taking responsibility for many of the non-critical administrative matters at the Institute to free up my time to write this monograph. I am grateful to Ms. Barbara Raff, whose administrative help in preparing the manuscript was invaluable. Finally, I am indebted to my daughters, my princesses, Natasha and Melanie, for showing me their love, understanding and encouragement