At the beginning of the twentieth century, engineers and technologists would have recognized the importance of adhesion in two main aspects: First, in the display of friction between surfaces at the time a topic of growing importance to engineers; the second in crafts requiring the joining of materials principally wood to form engineering structures. While physical scientists would have admitted the adhesive properties of glues, gels, and certain pastes, they regarded them as materials of uncertain formulation, too impure to be amenable to precise experiment. Biological scientists were aware...

"Adhesion of Cells, Viruses and Nanoparticles" describes the adhesion of cells, viruses and nanoparticles starting from the basic principles of adhesion science, familiar to postgraduates, and leading on to recent research results.

The underlying theory is that of van der Waals forces acting between cells and substrates, embodied in the molecules lying at the surfaces, together with the geometry and elasticity of the materials involved.

The first part describes the fundamental background to adhesion principles, including the phenomenology, the important equations and the...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, engineers and technologists would have recognized the importance of adhesion in two main aspects: First, in the display of friction between surfaces - at the time a topic of growing importance to engineers; the second in crafts requiring the joining of materials - principally wood-to form engineering structures. While physical scientists would have admitted the adhesive properties of glues, gels, and certain pastes, they regarded them as materials of uncertain formulation, too impure to be amenable to precise experiment. Biological scientists were...