Matthias Lutolf, Assistant Professor and head of the laboratory of stem cell bioengineering at the EFP Lausanne coordinates a regular series of mini-reviews entitled Integration Column. These articles cover all aspects of quantitative biosciences, recent trends in the areas and potential applications. The aim of this column is to provide a persepctive of a particular subject as well as critical evaluation of it that may help researchers to plan future studies. Six Integration columns will be published per year.