part Part 1 General aspects of epithelial cell and tissue culture -- chapter 1 Basic aspects of cell growth and cell cycle in culture / chapter 2 Cell culture media: selection and standardization / chapter 3 Bioelectrical characterization of epithelial cell (mono)layers and tissues / chapter 4 Characterization of transport over epithelial barriers / chapter 5 Studying cellular binding and uptake of bioadhesive lectins / chapter 6 High-throughput epithelial cell culture systems for screening drug intestinal permeability / chapter 7 Good cell culture practice: good laboratory practice in the cell culture laboratory for the standardization and quality assurance of in vitro studies / chapter 8 Regulatory acceptance of in vitro test systems as an alternative to safety testing in animals / chapter 9 Regulatory acceptance of in vitro permeability studies in the context of the biopharmaceutics classification system / part Part 2 Models of specific epithelial and endothelial barriers relevant to drug delivery -- chapter 10 Caco-2 cell monolayers as a model for studies of drug transport across human intestinal epithelium / chapter 11 Transport studies using intestinal tissue ex vivo / chapter 12 Models of the alveolar epithelium -- Anatomy of the lung / chapter 13 Bronchial epithelial cell cultures -- Physiology of the bronchial epithelium / chapter 14 In vitro methodologies to study nasal delivery using excised mucosa / chapter 15 Cell culture models of the corneal and conjunctival epithelium / chapter 16 Cell cultures of the retinal pigment epithelium to model the blood–retinal barrier for retinal drug and gene delivery / chapter 17 Human skin and skin equivalents to study dermal penetration and permeation / chapter 18 In vitro models of the human buccal epithelium: the TR146 cell culture model and the porcine in vitro model / chapter 19 Drug transport across the blood–brain barrier a molecular and functional perspective / chapter 20 BeWo cells: an in vitro system representing the blood–placental barrier / part Part 3 Emerging tools for studying biological barriers and drug transport -- chapter 21 Predicting drug absorption by computational methods / chapter 22 Confocal and two-photon fluorescence microscopy / chapter 23 On the application of scanning force microscopy in (cell) biology / chapter 24 Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy