Life science automation

Part of the “Bioinformatics & Biomedical Imaging” series, the volume Life Science Automation: Fundamentals and Applications discusses the science and engineering of life science automation devices, systems and technologies. It details design, modeling and fabrication techniques for automation tools and demonstrates how they can be integrated into automation systems to solve specific problems in the life sciences. Chapters cover physical detection methods and fundamentals of microscopy and machine vision; DNA and protein microarray fabrication automation; biological cell sorting automation; the automation of nucleic acid extraction and real-time polymerase chain reaction; and in situ imaging and manipulation in nano biosystems using the atomic force microscope. A robotic approach to high-throughput automation in the handling of biosamples also is addressed. Mingjun Zhang, Bradley Nelson and Robin Felder, eds.; !%Artech House Inc.%!, Norwood, Mass., 2007; $169.