CHRIS BINNS, PhD, is Professor of Nanoscience in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom. He spent two years working at Synchrotron Radiation Sources (SSRL, Stanford and NSLS, Brookhaven) in the USA. Professor Binns then obtained a permanent academic post at the University of Leicester and continued synchrotron radiation experiments. In the last decade his research has focused on magnetic nanoparticles, and at present is moving into the new areas of biomedical applications of nanoparticles and in Casimir force measurements using scanning probe microscopes.