Book excerpt: The Eighth International Conference on Miniaturized Systems in Chemistry and Life Science - B5Tas 2004 - is an annual meeting focusing on the research, development and application of miniaturized technologies and methodologies in chemistry and life science. The conference is celebrating its tenth anniversary after the first workshop at the University of Twente, The Netherlands in 1994. This research field is rapidly developing and changing towards a domain where core competence areas such as microfluidics, micro- and nanotechnology, materials science, chemistry, biology, and medicine are melting together to a truly interdisciplinary meeting place. This volume is the first in a two volume set, a valuable reference collection to all working in this field.