Marcos Intaglietta - Böcker

This book is not a "proceedings" volume. Rather the chapters are essays by experts in the field of blood substitutes, invited by the editors to con­ tribute to the 1996 "Current Issues in Blood Substitutes Research and Development" course given in San Diego, March 18-21. The contributors were selected because of their expertise in areas deemed by the editors to be critical to the advancement of the field. The course, as in past years, is heavily influenced by feedback from par­ ticipants, and by research in this and related fields. In addition to the didactic lectures (for which these chapters are the foundation), the course also offers the opportunity for presentation of research reports, progress reports from the various companies currently commercializing products, and round table discussions of selected subjects. Thus, we are grateful to past participants for their helpful comments. Production of a book, especially on a short timeline, is not an easy feat.

This volume contains a collection of essays by selected authors who are active in the field of blood substitutes research or closely allied disciplines. These essays were delivered as lectures by the authors at the second annual "Current Issues in Blood Substitute Research and Development - 1995" course sponsored jointly by the Departments of Medicine and Bioengineer­ ing, University of California, San Diego, the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI), and the U.S. Army on March 30, 31, and April 1, 1995 in San Diego. This course had three goals: to present fundaniental discussions of scientific issues critical to further development of artificial oxygen carriers, to provide academicians a forum to discuss their current research, and to provide the companies involved in developing products the opportunity to update the audience on their progress. The organization owes much to the solicited comments of the attendees of the 1994 course. We would like especially to thank the U.S. Army, particularly through the efforts of COL John Hess, who provided significant funding to make publication of this volume possible. In addition, a number of the participating companies provided additional financial support to offset the costs of the course. These include Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp., Hemosol, Nippon Oil and Fat, Northfield Laboratories, and Ortho Biotech.

This book is not a "proceedings" volume. Rather the chapters are essays by experts in the field of blood substitutes, invited by the editors to con­ tribute to the 1996 "Current Issues in Blood Substitutes Research and Development" course given in San Diego, March 18-21. The contributors were selected because of their expertise in areas deemed by the editors to be critical to the advancement of the field. The course, as in past years, is heavily influenced by feedback from par­ ticipants, and by research in this and related fields. In addition to the didactic lectures (for which these chapters are the foundation), the course also offers the opportunity for presentation of research reports, progress reports from the various companies currently commercializing products, and round table discussions of selected subjects. Thus, we are grateful to past participants for their helpful comments. Production of a book, especially on a short timeline, is not an easy feat.

Bioengineering is attracting many high quality students. This invaluable book has been written for beginning students of bioengineering, and is aimed at instilling a sense of engineering in them.Engineering is invention and designing things that do not exist in nature for the benefit of humanity. Invention can be taught by making inventive thinking a conscious part of our daily life. This is the approach taken by the authors of this book. Each author discusses an ongoing project, and gives a sample of a professional publication. Students are asked to work through a sequence of assignments and write a report. Almost everybody soon realizes that more scientific knowledge is needed, and a strong motivation for the study of science is generated. The teaching of inventive thinking is a new trend in engineering education. Bioengineering is a good field with which to begin this revolution in engineering education, because it is a youthful, developing interdisciplinary field.