Lab-On-Chips for Cellomics

From the reviews:

"This is a very timely book on many of the applications of microfluidic chips for cell related experiments. On 360 pages, a series of world renown authors in the 'lab on chip' area disclose some of their most exciting work, give us their opinion and overview of the most rapidly growing application of microfluidics.

The contents is organized in chapters for microfluidic devoices, pretreatment of cell samples, liposome model systems, electric field cell manipulation, electroporation, patch clamp, mechanical measurements on cells, apoptosis, cell cultivation, embryonic stem cell work, single cell experiments, organelle analysis and tissue formation. The book is easy reading for both, engineers and (probably) biologists, with many b/w graphs and photos. There are even a few color plates at the end of the book. Each chapter comes with up-to-date references taken from the scientific literature.

Even though I do not subscribe to terms like 'cellomics' or 'lab on chips,' which I believe are of no scientific value, I actually like the book! The many different authors guarantee a maximum in detail knowledge and expertise, however, the book represents rather a collection of short stories than a comprehensive overview. I also wonder if any biologists were consulted in the process. I suspect the majority of authors are from the engineering sector. I would appreciate a chapter or two on basic microfab, scaling laws related to cell biology and fundamentals of cell biology methods.

Overall, I can recommend this book to any researcher in the 'lab on chip' area, and to curious engineers and scientists in the fields of biology, medicine, chemistry and physics." (Andreas Manz, London, February 6, 2005)