Nanoreactor Engineering for Life Sciences and Medicine

This first-of-its-kind book presents latest advances in bionanoreactor design and refinement, focusing on the potentially huge applications in cell biology, tissue engineering, and medical diagnostics and therapies. You get full details on the research, practice, synthesis, and characterization of nanoreactors, including 14 actual systems with biomedical relevance explained in full by the pioneers who are developing them. This trail-blazing volume covers nanoreactor essentials, including a review of synthetic procedures and materials used to develop various nanoreactor configurations. It explores nanoreactor theory and design, highlighting the fundamental differences between molecular events in macroscale and nanoscale reactors. The book offers a clear look at the dominating role of interfaces and how they affect nanoreactor properties and processes. Moreover, it shows how chemical reaction engineering can be applied in analyzing thermodynamics of self-assembly, colloidal stability, reaction kinetics and stochastic effects, and nanoreactor optimization. The book explores integrated nanoreactor systems, covering a theoretical treatment of how nanoreactors can be mobilized inside cells and tissues or as nanostructured films or coatings. Supported by over 100 diagrams and 250 equations, this definitive resource spotlights 14 bionanoreactor systems in development, including organic polymers, vesicles, polymer-stabilized liposomes, artificial protein cages, stem cells, DNA architectures, and others.