Less than twenty years ago photolithography and medicine were total strangers to one another. They had not yet met, and not even looking each other up in the classi?eds. And then, nucleic acid chips, micro?uidics and microarrays entered the scene, and rapidly these strangers became indispensable partners in biomedicine. Asrecentlyastenyearsagothenotionofapplyingnanotechnologytothe?ghtagainstd- ease was dominantly the province of the ?ction writers. Thoughts of nanoparticle-vehicled deliveryoftherapeuticalstodiseasedsiteswereanexerciseinscienti?csolitude, andgrounds for questioning one's...

The Microsystems Series has as its goal the creation of an outstanding set of textbooks, references, and monographs on subjects that span the broad field of microsystems. Exceptional PhD dissertations provide a good starting point for such a series, because, unlike monographs by more senior authors, which must compete with other professional duties for attention, the dissertation becomes the sole focus of the author until it is completed. Conversion to book form is then a streamlined process, with final editing and book production completed within a few months. Thus we are able to bring...