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This volume is a compendium of different approaches to understanding cardiovascular disease and identifying the proteins, pathways and processes that impact it.
The first major bioterror event in the United States-the anthrax attacks in October 2001-was a clarion call for scientists who work with “hot” agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of Usamriid, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, once the headquarters of the U.S. biological weapons program and now the epicenter of national biodefense.
Peter Jahrling, the top scientist at Usamriid, a wry virologist who cut his teeth on Ebola, one of the world’s most lethal emerging viruses, has ORCON security clearance that gives him access to top secret information on bioweapons. His most urgent priority is to develop a drug that will take on smallpox-and win. Eradicated from the planet in 1979 in one of the great triumphs of modern science, the smallpox virus now resides, officially, in only two high-security freezers-at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and in Siberia, at a Russian virology institute called Vector. But the demon in the freezer has been set loose. It is almost certain that illegal stocks are in the possession of hostile states, including Iraq and North Korea. Jahrling is haunted by the thought that biologists in secret labs are using genetic engineering to create a new superpox virus, a smallpox resistant to all vaccines.
Usamriid went into a state of Delta Alert on September 11 and activated its emergency response teams when the first anthrax letters were opened in New York and Washington, D.C. Preston reports, in unprecedented detail, on the government’ s response to the attacks and takes us into the ongoing FBI investigation. His story is based on interviews with top-level FBI agents and with Dr. Steven Hatfill.
Jahrling is leading a team of scientists doing controversial experiments with live smallpox virus at CDC. Preston takes us into the lab where Jahrling is reawakening smallpox and explains, with cool and devastating precision, what may be at stake if his last bold experiment fails.
Audience: Students, scientists, clinical and experimental cardiologists who seek to understand and manage the perplexing problems of hypertrophy and heart failure.
Why are women more verbal than men? Why do women remember details of fights that men can’t remember at all? Why do women tend to form deeper bonds with their female friends than men do with their male counterparts? These and other questions have stumped both sexes throughout the ages.
Now, pioneering neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, M.D., brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and who they love. While doing research as a medical student at Yale and then as a resident and faculty member at Harvard, Louann Brizendine discovered that almost all of the clinical data in existence on neurology, psychology, and neurobiology focused exclusively on males. In response to the overwhelming need for information on the female mind, Brizendine established the first clinic in the country to study and treat women’s brain function.
In The Female Brain, Dr. Brizendine distills all her findings and the latest information from the scientific community in a highly accessible book that educates women about their unique brain/body/behavior.
The result: women will come away from this book knowing that they have a lean, mean, communicating machine. Men will develop a serious case of brain envy.
Since the first international meeting on this topic, held in Heidelberg in 1994, several new avenues of CK2 research have emerged despite persistent deficiencies in our understanding of the regulation of its activity. Among the significant new directions are studies related to the structure of the enzyme, especially its crystal structure, as well as an interesting aspect of CK2 function that involves its subunits as binding partners of several other proteins. In addition, new data have been gathered on the role of CK2 in transcription as well as in certain other cellular functions. To address these various aspects of the progress of CK2, a number of key scientists from different parts of the world came together at the second international meeting on `A Molecular and Cellular View of Protein Kinase CK2', held at Villard de Lans near Grenoble on September 24-26, 1997. The meeting was attended by nearly 50 participants and included 28 presentations, which provide a view of the latest progress on protein kinase CK2.
This volume provides a state-of-the-art source of information for basic scientists and clinicians who are interested in the molecular, biochemical, and cellular aspects of protein-(ADP-ribose) transfer reactions in human health and disease.
Why do you fall in love with one person rather than another? In this fascinating and informative book, Helen Fisher, one of the world's leading experts on romantic love, unlocks the hidden code of desire and attachment. Each of us, it turns out, primarily expresses one of four broad personality types—Explorer, Builder, Director, or Negotiator—and each of these types is governed by different chemical systems in the brain. Driven by this biology, we are attracted to partners who both mirror and complement our own personality type.
Until now the search for love has been blind, but Fisher pulls back the curtain and reveals how we unconsciously go about finding the right match. Drawing on her unique study of 40,000 men and women, she explores each personality type in detail and shows you how to identify your own type. Then she explains why some types match up well, whereas others are problematic. (Note to Explorers: be prepared for a wild ride when you hitch your star to a fellow Explorer!) Ultimately, Fisher's investigation into the complex nature of romance and attachment leads to astonishing new insights into the essence of dating, love, and marriage.
Based on entirely new research—including a detailed questionnaire completed by seven million people in thirty-three countries—Why Him? Why Her? will change your understanding of why you love him (or her) and help you use nature's chemistry to find and keep your life partner.
Taking into account that catecholamines and angiotensin II are vital for a balanced gene expression of many cells, the intriguing possibility arises that various disease are initiated or aggravated by such an imbalance. Catecholamine and angiotensin II influences can be in excess arising from, for example, hypercaloric food intake or psychosocial stress. During early progression of heart failure, sympathetic activity and angiotensin II influences also become increased. Due to beta-adrenergic receptor downregulation, depressed catecholamine influences are expected in the final stage of heart failure. An imbalanced influence of catecholamines and angiotensin II on gene expression leads to disordered molecular structures of the cell and an impaired cell function.
This focused issue is organized into chapters concentrating on catecholamines, angiotensin II, and the interaction between catecholamines and angiotensin II. Basic biochemical processes are covered in detail and the potential of these pathways for explaining chronic diseases associated with excess catecholamine and angiotensin II influences should become apparent. It is hoped that this focussed issue triggers novel research into the development of drugs that are targeted at diseases characterized by an imbalanced gene expression involving catecholamines and angiotensin II.
Are you baffled by biochemistry? If so here's the good news ? you don't have to stay that way! Biochemistry For Dummies shows you how to get a handle on biochemistry, apply the science, raise your grades, and prepare yourself to ace any standardized test.
This friendly, unintimidating guide presents an overview of the material covered in a typical college-level biochemistry course and makes the subject easy to understand and accessible to everyone. From cell ultrastructure and carbohydrates to amino acids, proteins, and supramolecular structure, you'll identify biochemical structures and reactions, and send your grades soaring.
Newest biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and scientific discoveries Updated examples and explanations Incorporates the most current teaching techniquesFrom water biochemistry to protein synthesis, Biochemistry For Dummies gives you the vital information, clear explanations, and important insights you need to increase your understanding and improve your performance on any biochemistry test.
This volume provides an overview of the state of knowledge concerning this intriguing protein kinase. It brings together contributions from leading investigators engaged in research in this field. Key developments during the past three years pertain to the elaboration of the crystal structure and definition of novel functions of the kinase, such as its role as an inhibitor of apoptosis. Additionally, the shuttling of the kinase to various compartments in response to physiological and stress stimuli appears to be a key feature of the functional regulation of its activity in the cell.
Life is the most extraordinary phenomenon in the known universe; but how did it come to be? Even in an age of cloning and artificial biology, the remarkable truth remains: nobody has ever made anything living entirely out of dead material. Life remains the only way to make life. Are we still missing a vital ingredient in its creation?
Using first-hand experience at the cutting edge of science, Jim Al-Khalili and Johnjoe Macfadden reveal that missing ingredient to be quantum mechanics. Drawing on recent ground-breaking experiments around the world, each chapter in Life on the Edge illustrates one of life's puzzles: How do migrating birds know where to go? How do we really smell the scent of a rose? How do our genes copy themselves with such precision? Life on the Edge accessibly reveals how quantum mechanics can answer these probing questions of the universe.
Guiding the reader through the rapidly unfolding discoveries of the last few years, Al-Khalili and McFadden describe the explosive new field of quantum biology and its potentially revolutionary applications, while offering insights into the biggest puzzle of all: what is life? As they brilliantly demonstrate in these groundbreaking pages, life exists on the quantum edge.
– Winner, Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication
Recognition of activated or modified signaling molecules by specific antibodies, new selective inhibitors, and fluorescent fusion tags are but a few of the tools used to dissect signaling pathways and cross-talk mechanisms that may eventually allow rational drug design. Understanding the regulation of cardiac hypertrophy in all its complexity remains a fundamental goal of cardiac research. Since the advancement of adenovirally mediated gene transfer, transfection efficiency is no longer a limiting factor in the study of cardiomyocytes. A limiting factor in considering cell transplantion as a strategy to repair the damaged heart is cell availability at the right time. Cardiac gap junctions, intercellular communication channels that allow electrical and metabolic coupling and play an important role in arrhythmogenesis are now understood to be exquisite sensors of cardiac change.
The reports in this volume incLude elegant studies that made use of cutting edge technological advances and many specialized reagents to address these issues.
This volume includes an up to date summary of the scientific and clinical aspects of essentially all the biologically active Guanidino Compounds. The articles summarize the current scientific knowledge of these compounds with reference to relevant clinical conditions, and discuss the chemical, biological, and clinical functions of these compounds.
Nessa Carey, a leading epigenetics researcher, connects the field's arguments to such diverse phenomena as how ants and queen bees control their colonies; why tortoiseshell cats are always female; why some plants need cold weather before they can flower; and how our bodies age and develop disease. Reaching beyond biology, epigenetics now informs work on drug addiction, the long-term effects of famine, and the physical and psychological consequences of childhood trauma. Carey concludes with a discussion of the future directions for this research and its ability to improve human health and well-being.
The information provided in this volume will provide new insights into the mechanisms that control vascular function as well as therapies designed to treat vascular disease.
This volume is a compilation of new multidisciplinary research that will broaden our current understanding of diabetes and cardiovascular disease as well as provide the basis for the development of novel therapeutic interventions.
Ever since Darwin and The Descent of Man, the evolution and world-wide dispersal of humans has been attributed to our intelligence and adaptability. But in Catching Fire, renowned primatologist Richard Wrangham presents a startling alternative: our evolutionary success is the result of cooking. In a groundbreaking theory of our origins, Wrangham shows that the shift from raw to cooked foods was the key factor in human evolution. Once our hominid ancestors began cooking their food, the human digestive tract shrank and the brain grew. Time once spent chewing tough raw food could be sued instead to hunt and to tend camp. Cooking became the basis for pair bonding and marriage, created the household, and even led to a sexual division of labor. In short, once our ancestors adapted to using fire, humanity began. Tracing the contemporary implications of our ancestors' diets, Catching Fire sheds new light on how we came to be the social, intelligent, and sexual species we are today. A pathbreaking new theory of human evolution, Catching Fire will provoke controversy and fascinate anyone interested in our ancient origins-or in our modern eating habits.
Wall Street Journal
From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in.
Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses.
Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body.
West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.
Now, in his long-awaited follow-up, Behe presents far more than a challenge to Darwinism: He presents the evidence of the genetics revolution -- the first direct evidence of nature's mutational pathways -- to radically redefine the debate about Darwinism.
How much of life does Darwin's theory explain? Most scientists believe it accounts for everything from the machinery of the cell to the history of life on earth. Darwin's ideas have been applied to law, culture, and politics.
But Darwin's theory has been proven only in one sense: There is little question that all species on earth descended from a common ancestor. Overwhelming anatomical, genetic, and fossil evidence exists for that claim. But the crucial question remains: How did it happen? Darwin's proposed mechanism -- random mutation and natural selection -- has been accepted largely as a matter of faith and deduction or, at best, circumstantial evidence. Only now, thanks to genetics, does science allow us to seek direct evidence. The genomes of many organisms have been sequenced, and the machinery of the cell has been analyzed in great detail. The evolutionary responses of microorganisms to antibiotics and humans to parasitic infections have been traced over tens of thousands of generations.
As a result, for the first time in history Darwin's theory can be rigorously evaluated. The results are shocking. Although it can explain marginal changes in evolutionary history, random mutation and natural selection explain very little of the basic machinery of life. The "edge" of evolution, a line that defines the border between random and nonrandom mutation, lies very far from where Darwin pointed. Behe argues convincingly that most of the mutations that have defined the history of life on earth have been nonrandom.
Although it will be controversial and stunning, this finding actually fits a general pattern discovered by other branches of science in recent decades: The universe as a whole was fine-tuned for life. From physics to cosmology to chemistry to biology, life on earth stands revealed as depending upon an endless series of unlikely events. The clear conclusion: The universe was designed for life.
For biochemists, biophysicists, physiologists, and medical research workers.
These problems are fully discussed in Cellular Interactions in Cardiac Pathophysiology, which draws together 25 contributions from leading investigators from all parts of the world. The contributions are grouped under three headings: Extracellular matrix and cardiocyte interaction; Myocytic adaptations and myocardial injury; and Signal transduction.
The interaction of an extracellular agonist (First Messenger) with its plasma membrane receptor leads to the transmission of a signal across the cell membrane and results in the production and/or activation of other signalling molecules (Second Messengers). These Second Messengers control the action of many protein kinases and protein phosphatases and so lead to cellular responses. Although the biochemical basis of the transduction of signals in the main signalling systems in eukaryotic cells is probably largely known, intensified research is ongoing in the following areas: the discovery of specific substrates for many protein kinases, elucidation of the biological significance of the differential tissue expression and heterogeneity of many signalling proteins, and the unravelling of diverse interactions (such as signal potentiation, synergism, antagonism and neuronal co-transmission) between signalling systems. As knowledge from such studies accumulates, it is becoming clear that the `cross talk' interactions between signalling systems are important features of dynamic cell regulation.
This volume is designed to summarize some aspects of the current work on various Second Messenger Systems and the integration of signals with respect to plasma membrane receptors. Second Messenger generation and degradation, protein kinase and phosphatase, cell cycle control, and cellular learning and memory.
Diverse and distinct auto-, para-, and endocrine stimuli arriving at the surface of endothelium, smooth muscle cells, cardiomyocytes and fibroblasts within the myocardium, engage cell type-specific receptors, which lead to transmission of signals across the cell plasma membrane and result in the production and activation of second messengers. The most common mechanism by which these second messengers function is via direct or indirect activation of specific protein kinases. The current challenge for scientists is to identify the specific substrates (e.g. metabolic enzymes, Ca2+-regulating proteins, transcription and mitotic factors) for the many protein kinases, to elucidate the biological significance of the cell type-specific expression heterogeneity of signalling proteins (e.g. membrane receptors, isoenzymes of protein kinase C, G-proteins) and to unravel the cross-talk interaction between the signalling systems (e.g. phospholipase C with adenylate cyclase and phospholipase C with phospholipase D). The multiplicity of receptor types, G-proteins, effector proteins, second messengers and protein kinases, their substrate proteins and the `cross-talk' interactions in the myocardium raises fundamental questions about the mechanisms that ensure the precision and timing of the myocardial responses to hormonal and pharmacological stimuli.
This book provides an up-to-date source of information for all scientists and clinicians interested in the mechanisms by which external signals are transmitted to the interior and regulation of a variety of physiological, pathological and pharmacological responses.
Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built—and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes.
A vibrantly entertaining book about the microbes that support our very existence, Life's Engines will inspire wonder about these elegantly complex nanomachines that have driven life since its origin. It also issues a timely warning about the dangers of tinkering with that machinery to make it more "efficient" at meeting the ever-growing demands of humans in the coming century.