Overview

One of Nature's most important talents is evolutionary development of systems capable of molecular recognition: distinguishing one molecule from another. Molecular recognition is the basis for most biological processes, such as ligandreceptor binding, substrate-enzyme reactions and translation and transcription of the genetic code and is therefore of universal interest. Over the past four decades, researchers have been inspired by Nature to produce biomimetic materials with molecular recognition properties, by design rather than by evolution. A particularly exciting area of biomimetics is Molecular Imprinting, which can be defined as process of template-induced formation of specific recognition sites (binding or catalytic) in a material where the template directs the positioning and orientation of the material's structural components by a self-assembling mechanism. The material itself could be oligomeric (the typical example is DNA replication process), polymeric (organic MIPs and inorganic imprinted silica gels) or 2-dimensional surface assembly (grafted monolayers). Essentially the current progress in the field of molecular imprinting is a result of fundamental achievements made by more than a hundred groups working in the areas of non-covalent and reversible covalent imprinting. The goal of this title is to capture this momentum and publish a new book that will reflect the current situation in this rapidly evolving technology. Very few of the tens of reviews already published on this subject present a critical analysis of the technological aspects of molecular imprinting. Leaders in this field have been approached with requests to provide their views and analyses of specific areas of design, characterization and application of these polymers. The main body of Molecular Imprinting of Polymers starts with chapters covering polymer design, synthesis, and characterization that are prepared by well-recognized experts such as Andrew Mayes and Natalia Perez-Moral, Claud