Written by authors from different fields to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, this book guides the reader through new nano-materials processing inspired by nature.
Structured around general principles, each selection and explanation is motivated by particular biological case studies. This provides the background for elucidating the particular principle in a second section. In the third part, examples for applying the principle to materials processing are given, while in a fourth subsection each chapter is supplemented by a selection of relevant experimental and theoretical techniques.

Wolfgang Pompe is retired professor of Materials Science at the Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany. Having obtained his academic degrees in physics, he spent his main academic career in the Institute of Solid State Physics and Materials Research Dresden of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, and since 1991 at the Technische Universitat, with a 1.5 year stay as a visiting professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, USA.

Gerhard Rodel is Head of the Institute of Genetics at the Technische Universitat Dresden. He obtained his academic degrees from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany, where he worked as Post-doc before taking up the appointment for a professorship in Molecular Biology and General Pathology at the Univerisity Ulm, Germany. In 1994, Professor Rodel was appointed as Professor of Genetics at the Technische Universitat Dresden. Since 2006 he is Speaker of the Dresden International Graduate School for Biomedicine and Bioengineering.

Michael Mertig is head of the "BioNanotechnology and Structure Formation Group" at the Max Bergmann Center of Biomaterials at Dresden University of Technology. Having obtained his academic degrees in physics at Dresden University of Technology, he spent most of his career in low-temperature physics and nanotechnology. He started to work in the field of bionanotechnology in 1994.

Hans-Jurgen Weiss has worked as a physicist in materials science at the Institute of Solid State Physics and Materials Research Dresden and at the Fraunhofer Institute of Materials and Beam Technology Dresden. He has approached various phenomena in fossils from a materials science viewpoint in order to obtain new insight in the sequence of fossilisation processes.

Molecular units
Molecular recognition
Cell adhesion
Whole- cell censor structures
Bio-hybrid silica-based materials
Biomineralization
Self- assembly