MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) is a burgeoning and highly interdisciplinary research area. Traditional MEMS devices rely heavily on Silicon device processing techniques and have been mostly directed at applications in telecommunications, the automotive industry, and in display devices.

In the last several years, considerable effort has gone into exploring the application of MEMS technology to issues broadly related to human health. In doing so, there is ongoing research in new processes and techniques for fabricating suitable devices, often to handle fluid flow, and often with new materials. There is also considerable research effort in finding new methods to detect small quantities of biochemical or other entities and integrate those methods into a simple device framework. Consequently, the research has two broad thrusts - firstly research to develop and improve new devices, often with new device paradigms, and secondly to apply the new technology to facilitate research advances in biochemistry, medicine, and related fields. It is often the case that new technologies lead to new research breakthroughs, which have greater long-term impact than the direct benefits of the new technology. At the same time there have also been considerable advances in traditional MEMS device technology that are potentially beneficial to the new "Bio-MEMS" community.