Book excerpt: Micro- and Nanoengineering of the Cell Surface explores the direct engineering of cell surfaces, enabling materials scientists and chemists to manipulate or augment cell functions and phenotypes. The book is accessible for readers across industry, academia, and in clinical settings in multiple disciplines, including materials science, engineering, chemistry, biology, and medicine. Written by leaders in the field, it covers numerous cell surface engineering methods along with their current and potential applications in cell therapy, tissue engineering, biosensing, and diagnosis. The interface of chemistry, materials science, and biology presents many opportunities for developing innovative tools to diagnose and treat various diseases. However, cell surface engineering using chemistry and materials science approaches is a new and diverse field. This book provides a full coverage of the subject, introducing the fundamentals of cell membrane biology before exploring the key application areas. - Demystifies the direct engineering of cell surfaces, enabling materials scientists and chemists to manipulate or augment cell functions and phenotypes - Provides a toolkit of micro- and nanoengineering approaches to the manipulation of the cell surface - Unlocks the potential of cell surface manipulation for a range of new applications in the fields of in vitro research, cell therapy, tissue engineering, biosensing, and diagnostics