Nano Comes to Life opens a window onto the nanoscale — the infinitesimal realm of proteins and DNA where physics and cellular and molecular biology meet — and introduces readers to the rapidly evolving nanotechnologies that are allowing us to manipulate the very building blocks of life. Sonia Contera gives an insider’s perspective on this new frontier, revealing how nanotechnology enables a new kind of multidisciplinary science that is poised to give us control over our own biology, our health, and our lives.

Drawing on her perspective as one of today’s leading researchers in the field, Contera describes the exciting ways in which nanotechnology makes it possible to understand, interact with, and manipulate biology — such as by designing and building artificial structures and even machines at the nanoscale using DNA, proteins, and other biological molecules as materials.