Hormones

Anthony W. Norman · Gerald Litwack

Jun 2014 · Academic Press

About this ebook

Hormones provides a comprehensive treatment of human hormones viewed in the light of modern theories of hormone action and in the context of current understanding of subcellular and cellular architecture and classical organ physiology. The book begins with discussions of the first principles of hormone action and the seven classes of steroid hormones and their chemistry, biosynthesis, and metabolism. These are followed by separate chapters that address either a classical endocrine system, e.g., hypothalamic hormones, posterior pituitary hormones, anterior pituitary hormones, ,thyroid hormones, pancreatic hormones, gastrointestinal hormones, calcium regulating hormones, adrenal corticoids, hormones of the adrenal medulla, androgens, estrogens and progestins, and pregnancy and lactation hormones; or newer domains of hormone action which are essential to a comprehensive understanding of hormone action, including prostaglandins, thymus hormones, and pineal hormones. The book concludes with a presentation of hormones of the future, i.e., cell growth factors. This book is intended for use by first-year medical students, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in the biological sciences. It is also hoped that this book will fill the void that exists for resource materials for teaching cellular and molecular endocrinology and that it will be employed as an equal partner with most standard biochemistry textbooks to provide a comprehensive and balanced coverage of this realm of biology.

About the author

Anthony W. Norman received his A.B. from Oberlin College in 1959, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1961 and 1963, respectively, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Following postdoctoral work in Paul D. Boyer’s group at UCLA, in 1964 he joined the Department of Biochemistry at University of California, Riverside, as an Assistant Professor. From 1976 to 1981 he served as Chair of the department and currently holds a Presidential Chair and is a Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Norman has also been active for some 25 years in medical education on the UC-Riverside campus and at UCLA through participation in the UR/UCLA Program in Biomedical Sciences, of which he was Dean and Director from 1986 to 1991. Dr. Norman's biomedical research career has focused on the mechanism of action of the vitamin D family of steroids. His chief contributions to these areas of cellular and molecular endocrinology have played a pivotal role in defining the boundaries of this research domain via discoveries that have opened new areas of investigation. The first of these was the discovery in 1968, and chemical characterization in 1971, of the hormonally active form of vitamin D, 1a,25(OH)2-vitamin D3. Subsequent achievements include the discovery and characterization of the nuclear receptor for 1a,25(OH)2D3, the clinical evaluation of 1a,25(OH)2D3 in renal osteodystrophy, articulation of the concept of the vitamin D endocrine system, the importance of 1a,25(OH)2D3 to insulin secretion and the discovery of a new rapid, nongenomic, signal transduction process for 1a,25(OH)2D3. Dr. Norman has been the recipient of awards that include a Fulbright Fellowship, 1970; Public Health Service Career Development Award, 1970; Mead Johnson Award, American Institute of Nutrition, 1977; Ernst Oppenheimer Award, Endocrine Society, 1977; Visiting Lecturer Australian Society of Endocrinology, 1978; Visiting Faculty Member, Mayo Clinic, 1981; Prix Andre.

Dr. Litwack has authored 3 textbooks on biochemistry and hormones (one with John Wiley & Sons and 2 with Academic Press/Elsevier) and he has edited more than 70 volumes in the Vitamins & Hormones series (Academic Press/Elsevier); he has edited 14 volumes entitled Biochemical Actions of Hormones (Academica Press); He has edited (with David Kritchevsky) Actions of Hormones on Molecular Processes (Academic Press)