BOOK REVIEWS

Biomaterials and Bioengineering HandbookDonald L Wise (ed)Marcel Dekker Inc, 2000920 pp, $235, ISBN 0 8247 0318 9

Reviewed by Marcus Smith and Julian Chaudhuri(University of Bath, UK)

Biomedical engineering is increasingly bene� ting from theinvolvement of chemical engineers. Exciting � elds such astissue engineering, controlled release drug delivery and celltherapy are well known for the contributions made bychemical engineering science. A key factor in these areasis an understanding of the interaction between biocompa-tible materials and human cells, tissues or � uids. Thisenables the choice and modi� cation of materials that will besubsequently incorporated in biomedical devices, some ofwhich will be implanted into humans.

The Biomaterials and Bioengineering Handbook consistsof a number of review chapters that cover biomaterials andbiocompatibility issues; case studies of orthopedic bio-materials; speci� c biomedical applications; and functionalbiomaterials. This is a multi-authored book that contains 41chapters written by researchers and practitioners of bioma-terials development. This is not a laboratory handbook, buta reference book, that can be used to get an overview of thecentral issues in the � eld, but is more likely to be used toobtain detailed information.

The volume is divided into nine main sections: biomater-ials and biocompatiblity; evaluation of biomaterials; bio-materials as delivery vehicles; ceramics and metals inorthopaedics; orthopaedic � xation devices; materials forreconstructing bony defects; collagen materials; biomater-ials and skin applications; and a section which looks to thepast and the future. The range of biomaterials included hereare natural and synthetic polymers, ceramics and metals.The material has been put together with a focus on ortho-paedic developments—the inclusion of a section on skin-based biomaterials seems out of place. Lots of otherapplications have been omitted, for example arterial andvascular prostheses, and nerve guidance systems to namejust two.

This book is not designed for readers unfamiliar with the� eld: it is not an explanatory textbook on the subject.Having said that, the � rst 300 pages of the book presentgeneral considerations that are relevant to anyone workingwith biomaterials of some sort. The editor has achieved thepotentially mammoth task of concisely presenting manycritical areas of biomaterials but has also reinforced thisinformation with case studies and recent research results.The result is an array of chapters that demonstrates the inter-disciplinary nature of the � eld.

The chapters appear to be application-oriented and re� ectthe multi-disciplinary nature of this � eld. There is a

thorough integration of basic science, engineering andclinical information, which includes much detailed informa-tion and data. Most of the chapters provide comprehensivebackground to the speci� c topic which allows access to thebook at any point. The contributions are well presented, andare extensively referenced, allowing the reader to delvefurther into the � eld.

There is an ever increasing number of multi-authored,edited books on aspects of biomedical and tissueengineering. It is rare, if not impossible, to � nd one thatcovers and integrates all aspects of the � eld, i.e. biomater-ials, cell biology, clinical considerations, device design,regulatory issues. This book is useful in that it has focusedon one key aspect—biomaterials—and has treated it indetail, in relation to the other underlying disciplines. Thisvolume will be useful to those who are starting work in thearea of biomaterials and have prior experience in materialsscience, biomedical engineering or relevant clinicalspecialities. For the engineer, the amount of detail, andrelevant design criteria will make it an important addition tothe bookshelf.

Thermal Processing of Bio-MaterialsTadeusz Kudra and Czeslaw Strumillo (eds)Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1998669 pp, £75, ISBN 90 5699 105 1

Reviewed by Professor Peter Fryer(University of Birmingham, UK)

Written by an international team of mostly Polish andCanadian researchers, this book attempts to describe therange of thermal processes which biomaterials can undergo.This is obviously a huge area, so that many of the chaptershave been the subject of many books themselves. The � rstsections of the book contain chapters on sterilization andpasteurization, evaporation, drying, chilling and freezing,describing the type of equipment used and simple engineer-ing models for their speci� cation and design. These aresupported by discussion on the characteristic properties ofbiomaterials that affect their thermal properties, and on thebasis of heat transfer and process design.

The breadth of the material covered and the number ofauthors used creates some dif� culties: for example, thede� nition of biomaterial used in the early chapters isprimarily that of microorganisms. Later in the book,however, a number of the application areas discussed(such as freezing and evaporation) are discussed as essen-tially food processing operations. The links between foodand other bioproduct processing are thus made implicitlyrather than explicitly. Each chapter is self-contained, so thisis not a severe problem; for example, the drying section, at

169Trans IChemE, Vol 78, Part C, September 2000