ABSTRACT
This book had its beginnings in a research collaboration headed by Friedrich Prinz and Lane Smith, which I was asked to join 18 months after I became a member of the faculty at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Prinz and Smith had conceived the idea that the micro-and nanofabrication processes used in silicon technology might be applied to biological systems. This work, which is ongoing, coincided with a request from the publisher to consider a second edition of my book, which was entitled Implantation Biology — The Host Response and Biomedical Devices. As I began to consider this proposal, it occurred to me that the opportunity to delve into the role that nanotechnology might play in the development of new biomedical devices would represent a more compelling topic for a textbook and one that might be achieved at a world class research university already immersed in the field.
