Force Microscopy: Applications in Biology and Medicine. Edited by Bhanu P. Jena and J.K. Heinrich Hörber. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ; 2006, 300 pages. ISBN 978-0-471-39628-4

The excitement of man's imagination and discovery by the scope of imaging tools, whether tele- or micro-, from 1015 to 10−15 m, ranges from the limits of the known universe to the atomic level. Light and electron microscopy opened vistas of biology and medicine with discovery of the unit of life, the cell and viruses. In the mid-1980s development of scanning probe microscopy allowed studies on live cells at the near-nanometer level. Thus, results from studies using the atomic force microscope (AFM) have given birth to a new field, “NanoCellBiology”, by providing investigators a three-dimensional view of the structure and dynamics of live cells and biomolecules at near-angstrom resolution. Applications of force microscopy to the study of physiological processes of living cells combined with biochemical and molecular biology are yielding rapid advances on how normal and diseased cells function. This exciting book contains 15 chapters by invited experts that examine cell secretory machinery and the discovery of a new cellular structure—the porosome—involved in cell secretion, properties of microbial and cell plant surfaces, cellular interactions of nanodrug delivery systems, intermolecular forces and avidity modulation of leukocyte adhesion molecules, micromechanical properties of lipid bilayers and vesicles, imaging of soft surfaces, high-speed action of biomolecules in motion, cytogenetic applications, and the study of macromolecular interactions in hemostasis and thrombosis.