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Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnosis
BOOKS & MEDIA
Self Assembly: The Science of Things That Put Themselves Together John A. Pelesko CRC Press • not yet published • 336 pp ISBN: 978-158-488-687-7 $59.95 / £28.99 This fully-illustrated book describes how self-assembly is achieved in nature, explaining key concepts, patterns, and structures. Man-made systems are then discussed, giving simple instructions which enable students to build simpler structures. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter and a website address is added which links to videos of the experiments and to the researchers profiled in the text.
Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnosis Challa S. S. R. Kumar (ed.) Wiley • 2007 • 448 pp ISBN: 978-3-527-31387-7 $185 / £95 / 142.50 Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnosis explores current developments in the application of nanotechnology for oncology diagnostics. Dendrimers and nanoparticles are described, with an emphasis on imaging techniques and particle-based detection systems. The use of carbon nanotubes, nanowires, nanocantilevers, and nanorods in patient treatment is also highlighted.
Nanophotonics with surface plasmons Vladimir Shalaev and Satoshi Kawata Elsevier • 2006 • 340 pps ISBN: 978-0-444-52838-4 $135 / £79 / 115 Nanostructured metals that can support surface plasmon modes greatly reduce the wavelength of electromagnetic fields and enhance local field strengths. This book describes how these properties can be harnessed to guide photons across the nano-micro interface in dielectric, semiconductor, and molecular photonic devices.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Catalysis fundamentals It was high time for a book to be published on surface and nanomolecular catalysis. This new text aims to cover the emerging field, but does it come up to scratch? Wilfred Tysoe | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | [email protected] Ryan Richards, the editor of Surface and Nanomolecular Catalysis, has set himself a daunting task by compiling this volume as both a reference text and graduate-level textbook. A volume on this subject is timely since it is certainly true that the explosion in new instrumentation and surfacesensitive experimental techniques has transformed catalysis from a ‘black art’ to one where we have an understanding of catalysis at a molecular level. The inclusion of ‘nano’ in the title acknowledges that nanotechnology has always been at the heart of catalysis, although as the editor notes, “few terms have been more commonly used and abused in the scientific literature than nano”. However, many of the chapters are not particularly nano-related, while paradoxically Chapter 4 on ‘Microporous and Mesoporous Catalysis’ that focuses on zeolites, which could claim to be nanoporous materials, sticks with the IUPAC nomenclature and refers to these as microporous. The editor has done an exceptional job of assembling an outstanding group of contributors, resulting in an easy to read and aesthetically pleasing volume. There is clearly some arbitrariness in the choice of topics for such a book, and I am sure that everyone reading it will have their own opinions of what should or should not have been included. I would not have included reaction engineering as a topic (Chapter 7), while electrocatalysis and fuel cells are only covered in short sections in Chapters 3 and 7 when they could have warranted a full chapter.
aimed at students, who are not necessarily familiar with many of these. There also seems to have been some laxity in copy editing, with errors that could not easily be found using a spell checker, ‘format’ instead of ‘formate’, for example, quite common. However, these minor gripes notwithstanding, this book nicely fulfills its goal of providing an excellent introductory text for graduate students embarking on a career in catalysis, or surface science applied to catalysis. The chapters are generally easy to read and provide a strong grounding in each topic with extensive bibliographies to lead the reader to a more detailed exploration of the subject. I would certainly strongly recommend this book to any academic or industrial laboratory as a source for new practitioners to gain an excellent overview of modern catalytic science. While reading the book, I tried to gauge how easy it would be to use as a graduate-level textbook. The majority of the chapters are not written in a pedagogical style that would naturally lend itself to a graduate course, with the exception perhaps of Chapter 9 on ‘Texturology’. Ryan Richards (ed.) Surface and Nanomolecular Catalysis CRC Press • 2006 • 552 pp • ISBN: 157-444-481-6 $169.95 / £97
As is perhaps inevitable with a book comprised of chapters by individual contributors, there is overlap. Chapter 4 includes a section on characterization, which repeats much of what has already been presented in Chapter 1 devoted specifically to ‘Characterization of Heterogeneous Catalysts’, and both Chapters 4 and 9 have extensive discussions of the BET isotherm. There is also some overlap between the final section of Chapter 1 on model catalyst systems and Chapter 10.
The book relies extensively on clear and welldrawn figures to illustrate concepts and summarize experimental results, but these are not available as supplemental material to use as part of a course. I would strongly encourage the publisher to make the figures available since this would go a long way in facilitating its use as a graduate textbook. As part of its role as a textbook, each chapter includes a series of review questions, an idea that I like very much. These, however, range from detailed and well conceived, to the more mundane: e.g. “Why is nanoscience interesting?”
Surface science and catalysis are fields that are perhaps overburdened with initials and acronyms and this book is no exception. Their use does have the advantage of succinctness but, in some places, disentangling them did become an annoyance, particularly for a book
In summary, this book works very well as an up-to-date overview of catalytic science and will be a valuable addition to any library at academic or industrial institutions, where there is an interest in catalysis and surface science.
JUNE 2007 | VOLUME 2 | NUMBER 3
53
Self Assembly: The Science of Things That Put Themselves Together John A. Pelesko CRC Press • not yet published • 336 pp ISBN: 978-158-488-687-7 $59.95 / £28.99 This fully-illustrated book describes how self-assembly is achieved in nature, explaining key concepts, patterns, and structures. Man-made systems are then discussed, giving simple instructions which enable students to build simpler structures. Exercises are included at the end of each chapter and a website address is added which links to videos of the experiments and to the researchers profiled in the text.
Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnosis Challa S. S. R. Kumar (ed.) Wiley • 2007 • 448 pp ISBN: 978-3-527-31387-7 $185 / £95 / 142.50 Nanomaterials for Cancer Diagnosis explores current developments in the application of nanotechnology for oncology diagnostics. Dendrimers and nanoparticles are described, with an emphasis on imaging techniques and particle-based detection systems. The use of carbon nanotubes, nanowires, nanocantilevers, and nanorods in patient treatment is also highlighted.
Nanophotonics with surface plasmons Vladimir Shalaev and Satoshi Kawata Elsevier • 2006 • 340 pps ISBN: 978-0-444-52838-4 $135 / £79 / 115 Nanostructured metals that can support surface plasmon modes greatly reduce the wavelength of electromagnetic fields and enhance local field strengths. This book describes how these properties can be harnessed to guide photons across the nano-micro interface in dielectric, semiconductor, and molecular photonic devices.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Catalysis fundamentals It was high time for a book to be published on surface and nanomolecular catalysis. This new text aims to cover the emerging field, but does it come up to scratch? Wilfred Tysoe | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee | [email protected] Ryan Richards, the editor of Surface and Nanomolecular Catalysis, has set himself a daunting task by compiling this volume as both a reference text and graduate-level textbook. A volume on this subject is timely since it is certainly true that the explosion in new instrumentation and surfacesensitive experimental techniques has transformed catalysis from a ‘black art’ to one where we have an understanding of catalysis at a molecular level. The inclusion of ‘nano’ in the title acknowledges that nanotechnology has always been at the heart of catalysis, although as the editor notes, “few terms have been more commonly used and abused in the scientific literature than nano”. However, many of the chapters are not particularly nano-related, while paradoxically Chapter 4 on ‘Microporous and Mesoporous Catalysis’ that focuses on zeolites, which could claim to be nanoporous materials, sticks with the IUPAC nomenclature and refers to these as microporous. The editor has done an exceptional job of assembling an outstanding group of contributors, resulting in an easy to read and aesthetically pleasing volume. There is clearly some arbitrariness in the choice of topics for such a book, and I am sure that everyone reading it will have their own opinions of what should or should not have been included. I would not have included reaction engineering as a topic (Chapter 7), while electrocatalysis and fuel cells are only covered in short sections in Chapters 3 and 7 when they could have warranted a full chapter.
aimed at students, who are not necessarily familiar with many of these. There also seems to have been some laxity in copy editing, with errors that could not easily be found using a spell checker, ‘format’ instead of ‘formate’, for example, quite common. However, these minor gripes notwithstanding, this book nicely fulfills its goal of providing an excellent introductory text for graduate students embarking on a career in catalysis, or surface science applied to catalysis. The chapters are generally easy to read and provide a strong grounding in each topic with extensive bibliographies to lead the reader to a more detailed exploration of the subject. I would certainly strongly recommend this book to any academic or industrial laboratory as a source for new practitioners to gain an excellent overview of modern catalytic science. While reading the book, I tried to gauge how easy it would be to use as a graduate-level textbook. The majority of the chapters are not written in a pedagogical style that would naturally lend itself to a graduate course, with the exception perhaps of Chapter 9 on ‘Texturology’. Ryan Richards (ed.) Surface and Nanomolecular Catalysis CRC Press • 2006 • 552 pp • ISBN: 157-444-481-6 $169.95 / £97
As is perhaps inevitable with a book comprised of chapters by individual contributors, there is overlap. Chapter 4 includes a section on characterization, which repeats much of what has already been presented in Chapter 1 devoted specifically to ‘Characterization of Heterogeneous Catalysts’, and both Chapters 4 and 9 have extensive discussions of the BET isotherm. There is also some overlap between the final section of Chapter 1 on model catalyst systems and Chapter 10.
The book relies extensively on clear and welldrawn figures to illustrate concepts and summarize experimental results, but these are not available as supplemental material to use as part of a course. I would strongly encourage the publisher to make the figures available since this would go a long way in facilitating its use as a graduate textbook. As part of its role as a textbook, each chapter includes a series of review questions, an idea that I like very much. These, however, range from detailed and well conceived, to the more mundane: e.g. “Why is nanoscience interesting?”
Surface science and catalysis are fields that are perhaps overburdened with initials and acronyms and this book is no exception. Their use does have the advantage of succinctness but, in some places, disentangling them did become an annoyance, particularly for a book
In summary, this book works very well as an up-to-date overview of catalytic science and will be a valuable addition to any library at academic or industrial institutions, where there is an interest in catalysis and surface science.
JUNE 2007 | VOLUME 2 | NUMBER 3
53