Artificial Cells: Biotechnology, Nanomedicine, Regenerative Medicine, Blood Substitutes, Bioencapsulation, and Cell Stem Cell Therapy (Regenerative Medicine, Artificial Cells and Nanomedicine)

This is the first book that provides a comprehensive review of the entire area of artificial cells. The author, a pioneer of the field, invented the first artificial cells some 50 years ago and has continued to carry out active research in this field. Since then, there have been explosive research activities around the world on artificial cells, especially in fields related to biotechnology, nanomedicine, cell therapy, blood substitutes, drug delivery and others. However, instead of the term artificial cells, many authors use other terminologies such blood substitutes, bioencapsulation, liposomes, nanoparticles, and so on. As a result, any meaningful literature search for a complete idea of the present status of the whole field of artificial cells is impossible. Furthermore, the fact that papers in this highly interdisciplinary area are published in numerous journals specializing in chemistry, medicine, surgery, bioengineering, and others, makes literature search even more difficult. Books in this area are mostly multi-authored, describing very specific and narrow areas. Therefore, many who enter this field for the first time cannot find any book that describes laboratory methods and procedures needed for starting their research. This monograph is written to fill this gap. Based on his 50 years of work and an interdisciplinary background, the author has managed to include all those areas in artificial cells that are disguised under different terminologies. Since this is a very large area, he starts each chapter by giving a detailed overview and has included more than 1000 references to facilitate easier literature search of this highly interdisciplinary area. Detailed examples of the author s own research are given and methods and procedures are described in detail. Readers interested in a detailed overview of the whole area can read from cover to cover but omitting the methods section at the end of each chapter. On the other hand, those entering this area of research will find the detailed methods and procedures very useful.