Surface Chemistry of Nanobiomaterials brings together the most recent findings regarding the surface modification of currently used nanomaterials, which is a field that has become increasingly important during the last decade. This book enables the results of current research to reach those who wish to use this knowledge in an applied setting. Leading researchers from around the world present various types of nanobiomaterials, such as quantum dots (QDs), carbon nanotubes, silver nanoparticles, copper oxide, zinc oxide, magnesium oxide, magnetite, hydroxyapatite and graphene, and discuss their related functionalization strategies. This book will be of interest to postdoctoral researchers, professors and students engaged in the fields of materials science, biotechnology and applied chemistry. It will also be highly valuable to those working in industry, including pharmaceutics and biotechnology companies, medical researchers, biomedical engineers and advanced clinicians.

Platform Chemical Biorefinery: Future Green Chemistry provides information on three different aspects of platform chemical biorefinery. The book first presents a basic introduction to the industry beneficial for university students, then provides engineering details of existing or potential platform chemical biorefinery processes helpful to technical staff of biorefineries. Finally, the book presents a critical review of the entire platform chemical biorefinery process, including extensive global biorefinery practices and their potential environmental and market-related consequences. Platform chemicals are building blocks of different valuable chemicals. The book evaluates the possibility of renewable feedstock-based platform chemical production and the fundamental challenges associated with this objective. Thus, the book is a useful reference for both academic readers and industry technical workers. The book guides the research community working in the field of platform chemical biorefinery to develop new pathways and technologies in combination with their market value and desirability.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, there has been a notable acceleration in the development of the techniques used to confirm identity. From fingerprints to photographs to DNA, we have been rapidly amassing novel means of identification, even as personal, individual identity remains a complex chimera. The Art of Identification examines how such processes are entangled within a wider sphere of cultural identity formation. Against the backdrop of an unstable modernity and the rapid rise and expansion of identificatory techniques, this volume makes the case that identity and identification are mutually imbricated and that our best understanding of both concepts and technologies comes through the interdisciplinary analysis of science, bureaucratic infrastructures, and cultural artifacts. With contributions from literary critics, cultural historians, scholars of film and new media, a forensic anthropologist, and a human bioarcheologist, this book reflects upon the relationship between the bureaucratic, scientific, and technologically determined techniques of identification and the cultural contexts of art, literature, and screen media. In doing so, it opens the interpretive possibilities surrounding identification and pushes us to think about it as existing within a range of cultural influences that complicate the precise formulation, meaning, and reception of the concept. In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Dorothy Butchard, Patricia E. Chu, Jonathan Finn, Rebecca Gowland, Liv Hausken, Matt Houlbrook, Rob Lederer, Andrew Mangham, Victoria Stewart, and Tim Thompson.

Mushroom Biotechnology: Developments and Applications is a comprehensive book to provide a better understanding of the main interactions between biological, chemical and physical factors directly involved in biotechnological procedures of using mushrooms as bioremediation tools, high nutritive food sources, and as biological helpers in healing serious diseases of the human body. The book points out the latest research results and original approaches to the use of edible and medicinal mushrooms as efficient bio-instruments to reduce the environment and food crises. This is a valuable scientific resource to any researcher, professional, and student interested in the fields of mushroom biotechnology, bioengineering, bioremediation, biochemistry, eco-toxicology, environmental engineering, food engineering, mycology, pharmacists, and more.

Biomimetic engineering takes the principles of biological organisms and copies, mimics or adapts these in the design and development of new materials and technologies. Biomimetic Technologies reviews the key materials and processes involved in this groundbreaking field, supporting theoretical background by outlining a range of applications. Beginning with an overview of the key principles and materials associated with biomimetic technologies in Part One, the book goes on to explore biomimetic sensors in more detail in Part Two, with bio-inspired tactile, hair-based, gas-sensing and sonar systems all reviewed. Biomimetic actuators are then the focus of Part Three, with vision systems, tissue growth and muscles all discussed. Finally, a wide range of applications are investigated in Part Four, where biomimetic technology and artificial intelligence are reviewed for such uses as bio-inspired climbing robots and multi-robot systems, microrobots with CMOS IC neural networks locomotion control, central pattern generators (CPG's) and biologically inspired antenna arrays.

Genetically Modified Organisms in Food focuses on scientific evaluation of published research relating to GMO food products to assert their safety as well as potential health risks. This book is a solid reference for researchers and professionals needing information on the safety of GMO and non-GMO food production, the economic benefits of both GMO and non-GMO foods, and includes in-depth coverage of the surrounding issues of genetic engineering in foods. This is a timely publication written by a team of scientific experts in the field who present research results to help further more evidence based research to educate scientists, academics, government professionals about the safety of the global food supply.

The Elsevier book-series "Advances in Planar Lipid Bilayers and Liposomes' (APLBL) provides a global platform for a broad community of experimental and theoretical researchers studying cell membranes, lipid model membranes and lipid self-assemblies from the micro- to the nanoscale. Planar lipid bilayers are widely studied due to their ubiquity in nature and find their application in the formulation of biomimetic model membranes and in the design of artificial dispersion of liposomes. Moreover, lipids self-assemble into a wide range of other structures including micelles and the liquid crystalline hexagonal and cubic phases. Consensus has been reached that curved membrane phases do play an important role in nature as well, especially in dynamic processes such as vesicles fusion and cell communication. Self-assembled lipid structures have enormous potential as dynamic materials ranging from artificial lipid membranes to cell membranes, from biosensing to controlled drug delivery, from pharmaceutical formulations to novel food products to mention a few. An assortment of chapters in APLBL represents both an original research as well as comprehensives reviews written by world leading experts and young researchers.

Biomaterials are advanced materials that garner interdisciplinary research. Wastewater pollution causes many adverse effects on human health and the environment. In order to rectify this, biomaterials and other nanomaterials have been utilized as photocatalysts against environmental waste. In this book, biomaterials are highlighted as a promising material for waste management, as biomaterials are cost-effective, eco-friendly and closer to nature.

The advances in microsystems offer new opportunities and capabilities to develop systems for biomedical applications, such as diagnostics and therapy. There is a need for a comprehensive treatment of microsystems and in particular for an understanding of performance limits associated with the shrinking scale of microsystems. The new edition of Microsystems for Bioelectronics addresses those needs and represents a major revision, expansion and advancement of the previous edition. This book considers physical principles and trends in extremely scaled autonomous microsystems such as integrated intelligent sensor systems, with a focus on energy minimization. It explores the implications of energy minimization on device and system architecture. It further details behavior of electronic components and its implications on system-level scaling and performance limits. In particular, fundamental scaling limits for energy sourcing, sensing, memory, computation and communication subsystems are developed and new applications such as optical, magnetic and mechanical sensors are presented. The new edition of this well-proven book with its unique focus and interdisciplinary approach shows the complexities of the next generation of nanoelectronic microsystems in a simple and illuminating view, and is aimed for a broad audience within the engineering and biomedical community.

What existential threats does humanity face? And how can we secure our future? 'The Precipice is a powerful book . . . Ord's love for humanity and hope for its future is infectious' Spectator 'Ord's analysis of the science is exemplary . . . Thrillingly written' Sunday Times We live during the most important era of human history. In the twentieth century, we developed the means to destroy ourselves - without developing the moral framework to ensure we won't. This is the Precipice, and how we respond to it will be the most crucial decision of our time. Oxford moral philosopher Toby Ord explores the risks to humanity's future, from the familiar man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the potentially greater, more unfamiliar threats from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. With clear and rigorous thinking, Ord calculates the various risk levels, and shows how our own time fits within the larger story of human history. We can say with certainty that the novel coronavirus does not pose such a risk. But could the next pandemic? And what can we do, in our present moment, to face the risks head on? A major work that brings together the disciplines of physics, biology, earth and computer science, history, anthropology, statistics, international relations, political science and moral philosophy, The Precipice is a call for a new understanding of our age: a major reorientation in the way we see the world, our history, and the role we play in it.

Tissue engineering involves seeding of cells on bio-mimicked scaffolds providing adhesive surfaces. Researchers though face a range of problems in generating tissue which can be circumvented by employing nanotechnology. It provides substrates for cell adhesion and proliferation and agents for cell growth and can be used to create nanostructures and nanoparticles to aid the engineering of different types of tissue. Written by renowned scientists from academia and industry, this book covers the recent developments, trends and innovations in the application of nanotechnologies in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. It provides information on methodologies for designing and using biomaterials to regenerate tissue, on novel nano-textured surface features of materials (nano-structured polymers and metals e.g.) as well as on theranostics, immunology and nano-toxicology aspects. In the book also explained are fabrication techniques for production of scaffolds to a series of tissue-specific applications of scaffolds in tissue engineering for specific biomaterials and several types of tissue (such as skin bone, cartilage, vascular, cardiac, bladder and brain tissue). Furthermore, developments in nano drug delivery, gene therapy and cancer nanotechonology are described. The book helps readers to gain a working knowledge about the nanotechnology aspects of tissue engineering and will be of great use to those involved in building specific tissue substitutes in reaching their objective in a more efficient way. It is aimed for R&D and academic scientists, lab engineers, lecturers and PhD students engaged in the fields of tissue engineering or more generally regenerative medicine, nanomedicine, medical devices, nanofabrication, biofabrication, nano- and biomaterials and biomedical engineering.

'Direct Microbial Conversion of Biomass to Advanced Biofuels' is a stylized text that is rich in both the basic and applied sciences. It provides a higher level summary of the most important aspects of the topic, addressing critical problems solved by deep science. Expert users will find new, critical methods that can be applied to their work, detailed experimental plans, important outcomes given for illustrative problems, and conclusions drawn for specific studies that address broad based issues. A broad range of readers will find this to be a comprehensive, informational text on the subject matter, including experimentalists and even CEOs deciding on new business directions.

A compilation of up to date reviews of topics in biotechnology and the medical field.