Methods in Bioengineering: Microdevices in Biology and Medicine

Microfabrication technology has quietly changed the world around us. Hiding under the shiny coat of our cars, cellular phones, and music players, the silicon microchip markedly changed our way of life. Features a thousand times smaller than a single millimeter enable an unparallel control over electrical signals resulting in nearly magical computational, communication, and memory powers. At the dawn of this century, a similar revolution is changing the study of biology and the practice of medicine. Microscale patterns, three-dimensional features, and the physics of small places offer a unique ability to control the microenvironment providing innovative tools for the study, diagnosis and treatment of disease. Offering a practical look into the field, this volume presents the science behind microscale device design and the engineering of its fabrication. Supported with dozens of full-color illustrations, this book offers you clear, step-by-step methods for cell capture from whole blood, high-throughput study of transcriptional dynamics in living cells, Temporal control of cell-cell interaction, nanoscale measurements of cellular forces, immobilizing living c. elegans, optical and electrical on-chip cell sorting and human-on-chip modeling of drug metabolism.