Claudio Nicolini received his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Padua in 1967. After serving as adjunct professor at the University of Bari, he moved to the United States, where he worked for 16 years at Brown University, MIT and Brookhaven National Laboratory. He then moved to Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, where after a period of intensive biomedical training and research he became associate professor of pathology and then professor and chair of the Division of Biophysics in 1976. He was conferred the title "eminent scientist" in 1984, when he was chair of Biophysics at the University of Genoa, Italy, where at present he is director of CIRSDNNOB-Nanoworld Institute (www.nwi.unige.it) and president of the Fondazione Elba (www.fondazione-elba.org). In 2008, he has was elected a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr Nicolini was chief editor of Cell Biophysics, science and technology advisor to the Italian prime minister, a member of the National Science and Technology Council Parliament, scientific director of the Industrial Consortium CIREF, founder and CTS president of Technobiochip and president of the Polo Nazionale Bioelettronica and ST Elba. He received several awards and prizes and has authored over 440 publications in international scientific journals and 27 books. An owner of 32 patents, he is also the series editor for Bioelectronics (Plenum Press) and Nanobiotechnology (Pan Stanford Publishing). His main scientific activities are cancer research, biophysics and nanotechnology, chromatin structure function, bioelectronics and nanobiotechnology.

"This is an impressive compendium of the work of Professor Nicolini and others in the critical area of nanotechnology. Wide-ranging in its scope, it addresses the crucial junction between nanotechnology and biology. The label-free detection methods covered here will provide powerful new tools for understanding molecular interactions, and the nanoscale materials will find far-reaching applications in both biology and engineering."—Prof. Joshua LaBaer, Harvard University, USA

• Nanoscale Materials. Nanoscale Probes. Nanoscale Applications in Health and Science. Nanoscale Applications to Industry and Energy Compatible with Environment.