ABSTRACT
There is a revolution occurring in biological research. Emphasis is rapidly shifting toward the view of biology in terms of a complex series of physical and chemical interactions, and interdisciplinary research between engineers, biologists, physicists, and clinicians is becoming the modus operandi (Garwin, 1999). A rapidly developing field of research is the use of microfabrication to make mechanically, electrically, and/or chemically interactive structures for biological research and applications, known collectively as BioMEMS. By using microfabrication techniques, structures can be fabricated with spatial features from the submicron range up to several millimeters. These multi-scale structures correspond well with hierarchical biological structures, from proteins and subcellular organelles to the tissue and organ levels. This structural correlation allows scientists to investigate biological structures on their respective size scales and interact in a more appropriate and responsive manner to the structures within the body and within biological fluids.
