A compendium of readily reproducible and novel methods to manipulate DNA viruses and characterize their varied biological properties. The authors emphasize techniques for viral detection and genetics, but also include methods for structure determination, gene expression, replication, pathogenesis, complex cellular models, recombinant genetics, and computational/systems approaches. Wide-ranging and highly practical, DNA Viruses: Methods and Protocols will stimulate new directions in virology research with its novel strategies for engineering viral vectors in gene therapy, and its advanced approaches for detecting viruses in human disease.

Hedgehog-GLI Signaling in Human Disease represents the first compilation of up-to-date reviews by top-level scientists in this important field of research. The chapters cover a wide spectrum of related interests, from the molecular bases of morphogen function, to human genetics to cancer research. The aim of the book is to disseminate information on this exciting field, to allow students, scientists and the public in general to gain access current information from research leaders and to provide a book that encompasses different aspects of research showing the fusion of basic research in model systems and medicine. This is a timely primer on how a system of cell communication, Hedgehog-GLI signaling, plays a critical role in human disease and thus provides the background for the development of novel and rational therapies.

The aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases occupy a special position in molecular biology, the point in gene expression at which the genetic code is first defined. Francis Crick, in his inimitable fashion, foresaw in his prescient Adaptor Hypothesis the need for such a family of enzymes to provide an interface between nucleic acids and amino acids, long before even the basic tenets of protein synthesis had been established. In the halfcentury or so since, these “adaptors” and the enzymes that recognize them have continued to provide many surprises in what at first might have been considered a simple housekeeping reaction of protein synthesis. Perhaps most importantly, their study has revealed the molecular mechanisms that determine and accurately maintain the genetic code. In addition to serving as the first systems that illustrate how proteins achieve sequence specific recognition of RNA, work on synthetases has also provided groundbreaking advances in numerous fields ranging from structural biology to enzymology to gene expression to molecular evolution. More recently, cellular functions have been found for aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases beyond their classical roles, opening up new and unexpected areas for study. The purpose of this book is to provide for the first time a comprehensive volume covering all aspects of the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and aminoacyl-tRNA synthesis. We hope it will prove to be an invaluable reference to those in the field and the ideal introduction to those outside the area.

High pressure biology is an old, fascinating and stimulating field of research. One of the major reasons for the interest in studying high pressure is that this environmental factor also plays an important role in thermodynamics and consequently in biology. Pressure, from a biological perspective, has a bearing on all living creatures. The book presents a panoramic view of this subject from molecules to the overall organism, via the cells and unicellular species, invertebrates and vertebrates, ectotherms and endotherms.

The advent of new neutron facilities and the improvement of existing sources and instruments world wide supply the biological community with many new opportunities in the areas of structural biology and biological physics.

Genomics and Proteomics Engineering in Medicine and Biology presents a well-rounded, interdisciplinary discussion of a topic that is at the cutting edge of both molecular biology and bioengineering.