Jun Yoshida – författare

Neurodegenerative disorders and malignant tumors are usually resistant to any treatment, and the mortality rate is very high for persons with these conditions. Accordingly, finding effective treatments for these diseases is one of the most serious issues for medicine in the 21st century. In this volume, the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders and malignant tumors are addressed, as are new therapeutic tools that exploit our understanding of these disease mechanisms. Substantial evidence for the existence of common molecular pathways for both neurodegeneration and tumor growth has been found, and many novel molecules related to both of them have also been discovered. Because integrated research on neuronal and neoplastic disorders is singularly effective in overcoming these disorders, this volume will be an excellent source of information on the state of the research in this field and on the development of its applications in human disease therapy. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas.ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member

This book provides the reader with the latest research on vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) spectroscopy including its useful features and applications to many fields. The book starts from an unresolved question in gel chemistry of how component molecules are organized in the flexible fibrils of gels. VCD spectroscopy was successful in giving a clear answer to this mystery. The book also describes a key aspect of this technique lay in the fact that VCD signals were remarkably enhanced when chiral molecules formed a stereoregular molecular array over a few hundred nanometers. VCD spectroscopy was also applied to other topics involving chiral molecules such as the chiral discrimination mechanism in heterogeneous asymmetric catalysis and the build-up of supramolecular chirality in molecular crystals. Furthermore, the book covers the recent instrument developments leading to multi-dimensional VCD measurements with the coordinates of wavenumber, space and time. This progress has opened up new biological and medical applications such as the heterogenous distributions of protein domains in insect wings and the quality control of chiral drugs. The last part of the book presents the possibility of medical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease through multi-dimensional VCD analyses. This book appeals not only to researchers and students who study spectroscopy but also to ones in catalysis, biology and medicine as users of the VCD methods.