Protocols in Molecular Parasitology offers a wide range of experi mental protocols, each written by experts, to research workers interested in exploring the molecular aspects of parasitology. This is a field that has expanded enormously in scope and potential over the last decade, although it is as yet significantly underrepresented in the literature out side of academic journals. The need for manuals such as this one stems in part from the increasing difficulty of reproducing experimental tech niques from reports in standard journal papers, where pressures on space usually result in highly abbreviated descriptions. The "Notes" sections of the following chapters are particularly aimed at counteracting this problem. Since the emphasis of the book is on aspects of molecular analysis, it was possible to devote only a limited amount of space to describing protocols for culture and isolation of the primary parasitic material. Therefore, of the numerous parasitic systems that are currently being investigated in laboratories around the world, only techniques for c- turing the "big five" are described here, since they collectively account for the great bulk of research in this field. It is also possible that some minor front-end modifications to certain protocols may be necessary, depending on exactly which parasite is being studied.
