Paul G. Winyard - Böcker

Highly skilled experimenters present key techniques for the multidisciplinary study of inflammation in such conditions as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, renal disease, and cardiovascular disease. Described in step-by-step detail to ensure experimental success, the techniques are focused on the research and development of potential new antiinflammatory drugs in active target areas. The protocols are suitable for many current areas of drug discovery research, including transcription factors, cytokines, adhesion molecules, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors, free radicals, nitric oxide synthases, angiogenesis, wound healing, complement activation, immune rejection, and metalloproteinases.

Highly skilled experimenters present key techniques for the multidisciplinary study of inflammation in such conditions as inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, renal disease, and cardiovascular disease. Described in step-by-step detail to ensure experimental success, the techniques are focused on the research and development of potential new antiinflammatory drugs in active target areas. The protocols are suitable for many current areas of drug discovery research, including transcription factors, cytokines, adhesion molecules, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors, free radicals, nitric oxide synthases, angiogenesis, wound healing, complement activation, immune rejection, and metalloproteinases.

As in so many fields of scientific endeavour following the molecular biology revo­ lution, our knowledge of the role of radicals not only in pathological states, but in basic physiology has developed exponentially. Indeed, our evolving concepts have, like so many political parties, been forced into dramatic "V-turns" and contortions. Within our working lives, we have had to debate whether radicals made any con­ tribution to any pathology, whilst now it is difficult not to entertain the view that every physiological process is pivotally controlled by exquisitely sensitive radical reactions. Inflammation is, of course, an example of pathology evolving from physiology, and in this book we have called upon both scientists and clinicians who have research interests in the complex switching mechanisms that sustain these transi­ tions. The book as a whole explores, from a physiological standpoint, how deter­ ministic radical systems sensitive to their initial conditions can interdigitate, iterate and feed back to control diverse cellular processes that create the inflammatory response. Whilst systems such as these to a mathematician would provide the basis for a chaotic response, one is forced to marvel how, for all stages of an inflammatory reaction, this system appears exquisitely controlled, making therapeutic manipula­ tion both possible and, to some extent, predictable.

The chapters in this text are broadly organized so they trace the clinical course of the acute and chronic inflammatory response, emphasizing the therapeutic implications of data on the contribution of nitric oxide and related nitrogen-centred species.

Nature endows us with a treasure chest of Green Gold full of amazing ‘redox-active’ substances which interfere with numerous biological processes in our own body, in animals, bacteria, fungi and plants. Whilst such natural products are all around and also in us, we still do not fully understand how these compounds actually work. This book attempts to resolve some of the mysteries and riddles associated with such products. Written by more than thirty international experts from academia and industry, it places a focus on modern developments in this field and considers such natural products from various angles, from their isolation and characterization all along to product development and commercialization. Throughout, the reader will be confronted with modern approaches which enable the efficient identification and isolation of new natural products, help to elucidate their mode(s) of action and permit practical uses in Medicine, Cosmetics, Agriculture, Industry and as functional foods.