Medicinal chemistry is both science and art. The science of medicinal chemistry offers mankind one of its best hopes for improving the quality of life. The art of medicinal chemistry continues to challenge its practitioners with the need for both intuition and experience to discover new drugs. Hence sharing the experience of drug research is uniquely beneficial to the field of medicinal chemistry. Drug research requires interdisciplinary team-work at the interface between chemistry, biology and medicine. Therefore, the topic-related series Topics in Medicinal Chemistry covers all relevant aspects of drug research, e.g. pathobiochemistry of diseases, identification and validation of (emerging) drug targets, structural biology, drugability of targets, drug design approaches, chemogenomics, synthetic chemistry including combinatorial methods, bioorganic chemistry, natural compounds, high-throughput screening, pharmacological in vitro and in vivo investigations, drug-receptor interactions on the molecular level, structure-activity relationships, drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, elimination, toxicology and pharmacogenomics. In general, special volumes are edited by well known guest editors.

This volume provides state-of-the-art and novel methods on antibiotic isolation and purification, identification of antimicrobial killing mechanisms, and methods for the analysis and detection of microbial adaptation strategies. Antibiotics: Methods and Protocols guides readers through chapters on production and design, mode of action, and response and susceptibility. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Antibiotics: Methods and Protocols aims to inspire scientific work in the exciting field of antibiotic research.

Cancer is a complex disease. Only 5-10% of human cancers are hereditary in nature. Many of us think of environmental agents when we think of carcinogens. The environment includes all that surrounds us, and environmental influences include not only chemical, physical and biological toxicants, but also diet and lifestyle. In this broadest sense, the environment contributes substantially in the development of human cancer. This book will describe how environment contributes to malignant transformation leading to profound changes in the genetic and signaling networks that control the functioning of the cell. It will critically discuss the understanding of the effects of environment on the development, progression and metastasis of cancer with current knowledge of the signaling networks that support functioning of transformed human cells. Genes and environmental factors that influence the origins of cancer are not necessarily the same as those that contribute to its progression and metastasis. Susceptibility gene variants for each specific cancer are being identified with emerging evidence of gene environment interaction. Gene-environment interactions will be discussed through each specific cancer-based approach to address the question of how genetic variations can influence susceptibility to the individual type of cancer. It will also highlight and summarize epigenetic changes that increase the risk for susceptibility to a particular type of cancer, particularly in the presence of specific environmental factors. Thus, this book will contain chapters from the world s experts focused on the current evidences that support the role of environment in the cancer etiology and in the growth of malignant lesions, and discuss who may be susceptible to environmental influences."

An extraordinary compendium of information on herbal medicine, Medicinal Plants of the World, Volume 2 comprehensively documents the medicinal value of twenty-four major plants species widely used around the world in medical formulations. The book's exhaustive summary of available scientific data for the plants provides detailed information on how each plant is used in different countries, describing both traditional therapeutic applications and what is known from its use in clinical trials. A comprehensive bibliography of over 3000 references cites the literature available from a wide range of disciplines. This book offers an unprecedented collection of vital scientific information for pharmacologists, herbal medicine practitioners, drug developers, medicinal chemists, phytochemists, toxicologists, and researchers who want to explore the use of plant materials for medicinal and related purposes.

In one generation, the numerous factors involved in blood coagulation have become real protein entities, isolated in pure form, expressed by recombinant DNA techniques, and subjected to structure elucidation by the modem methods of physical chemistry, viz. , X-ray diffraction, and NMR, ESR and fluorescence spectroscopy. The major milestone in this field was the breakthrough achieved by W. Bode, R. Huber and their colleagues in 1989 in of human a-thrombin, inhibited with D-Phe-Pro-Arg determining the crystal structure chioromethyl ketone. The availability of this structure will greatly facilitate the interpretation of experiments designed to gain an understanding of the interatomic interactions between this enzyme and fibrinogen and its other substrates. At the same time, it provides a rational basis for the design and synthesis of inhibitors of thrombin, the subject of this symposium. The symposium was organized in four sessions: (1) Structural features of the interaction of thrombin with substrates and inhibitors, (2) Synthetic inhibitors, (3) Hirudin and its analogues, and (4) Pharmacological and clinical considerations. This book contains summaries of most of the papers presented, and takes its rigbful place among two others that provide a comprehensive picture of our current knowledge about thrombin, viz. the 1977 volume entitled "Chemistry and Biology of Thrombin", edited by R. L. Lundblad, J. W. Fenton II, and K. G. Mann, and the 1992 volume entitled "Thrombin: Structure and Function", edited by L. J. Berliner.

The realization that epithelial tissues are not simply passive barriers to the adsorption of materials into internal environments has brought about an enormous growth of investigation of mucosal functions and their active and passive protective roles. Epithelia are highly organized but complex structures, subserving numerous functions, including immunological defence. The use of pharmacological tools in these systems is increasing, which is improving our understanding of epithelial immunobiology.;This volume adopts a step-by-step approach whereby each chapter builds upon the previous one, progressively adding important foundation information, culminating in a series of chapters concerning particular epithelia, including respiratory, gastrointestinal, renal and ocular. The result is a comprehensive, but integrated, treatise of piethelial function and its immunopharmacology, which aims to scrve as an appropriate starting point at which the clinical pulmonologist and the research scientist can obtain an appreciation of some aspects of epithelial immununopharmacology as they are currently understood.

Many advances have been made in the field of thermoregulation in the past few years. These include our understanding of Fever, which is now considered not simply a rise in deep body temperature foHowing infection, but just one aspect, though perhaps the most easily measured, of the Acute Phase of the Immune Response. Classification and identification of the Cytokines and the availability of recombinant material has greatly aided this research. Similarly, our understanding of the Hypothalamo-Pituitary Adrenal Axis has altered our way of thinking about temperature regulation. Of importance are the problems associated with adverse climatic conditions and survival, and the problems encountered by the neonate and the hibernator. At the biochemical level, our knowledge of the control of heat production and the role of brown adipose tissue is rapidly advancing. All these issues and many others were discussed at a Symposium 'Thermal Physiology 1993' held in Aberdeen, Scotland in August 1993 under the auspices of the Thermal Physiology Commission of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. Six main aspects of the subject of temperature regulation are included in this book, namely, Fever (including the Acute Phase of the Immune Response and Thermoregulatory Peptides), Neurophysiology of Thermoregulation, Neonatal Thermoregulation, Mechanisms of Heat Production, Ecological and Behavioural Thermoregulation, and Emerging Themes in Thermoregulation.

Medicine has entered a golden age in which therapeutic agents are becoming widely available due to advances in basic science and technology. As such, many drugs have been developed that target inflammatory processes and/or the immune system. This book is intended for health professionals examining the modulation of inflammation by immunotherapeutic drugs. The immune system fills the primordial role of host defense and resistance to infections with pathogenic microorganisms. Several hematopoietic-derived cells constituting the innate and adaptive immune systems cooperate to provide barriers for microbial colonization and/or promote pathogen destruction within the host. Conversely, many immune cells are also involved in the pathogenesis and propagation of chronic inflammatory diseases. The beginning of this book details various components of the immune system including the cell types, lymphoid tissues, soluble cytokines and surface molecules that are essential for host defense. Breakdowns in immune tolerance, or dysregulated immune responses to antigens derived from self tissues or innocuous sources, can lead to the development of autoimmunity or chronic inflammatory diseases. Pathophysiologic roles for the immune system are detailed in corresponding chapters on autoimmunity, epithelial surfaces (lungs, skin, intestine), and transplantation, with special emphasis placed on immunotherapeutic drug targets. The last section of the book focuses on treatments that stimulate our immune system to specifically target and fight infectious diseases and cancer. In each chapter, the medications used to treat various diseases/conditions in terms of their mechanism of action and other pharmacologic properties are detailed. Chapters begin with a table showing drug names and classifications. The importance of basic science and clinical trials cannot be understated in the context of drug development. As such, the discovery of certain medications that had a lasting impact in medicine and pharmacy are highlighted in chapter subsections named "Bench to Bedside." Several clinical applications of immunotherapeutic drugs are described within end-of -chapter case studies including practice questions. The Pharmacology of Immunotherapeutic Drugs is a reference for immunologists and clinicians (medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses) examining the modulation of inflammatory processes by a variety of medications targeting the cells and mediators of our immune system.

The consequences for diseases involving the immune system such as AIDS, and chronic inflammatory diseases such as bronchial asthma, rheumatoid athritis, and atherosclerosis, now account for a considerable economic burden to governments worldwide. In response there has been an enormous research effort investigating the basic mechanisms underlying such diseases, and a tremendous drive to identify novel therapeutic applications for their preventions and treatment. Though a plethora of immunological studies have been published in recent years, little has been written about the implications of such research for drug development. As a consequence, this area has not gained the prominence of other new fields such as molecular pharmacology or neuropharmacology, and a focal information source for many pharmacologists interested in diseases of the immune system remains unpublished. The Handbook of Immunopharmacology series provides such a source through the commissioning of a comprehensive collection of volumes on all aspects immunopharmacology. Editors have been sought after for each volume who are not only active in their respective areas of expertise, but who also have distinctly pharmacological bias to their research. The series follows three main themes, each represented by volumes on individual component topics. The first covers each of the major cell types and classes of inflammatory responses that can affect them ("Systems"). The third covers different classes of diseases as well as those under development ("Drugs").

Proceedings of the International Symposium on Polymer Therapeutics - Recent Progress in Clinics and Future Prospects, held July 13-14, 2001, in Nara, Japan.

The technology of polymer science has developed considerably during the past half-century, and this volume describes some of the aspects of this technology that will have a great impact in the future. Among these advances, for example, are gene delivery to specific disease sites and carrier polymers that respond to a stimulus or particular environment. Cancer targeted drug delivery is another focused area of this volume because of the important nature of EPR-effect of polymer drugs in tumor. Included are discussions of as many examples as possible of polymer drugs that have achieved, or are close to clinical use. The concept of "Polymer drugs" here is limited to primarily injectable and water-soluble agents, although also covered are some drugs in micellar form or liposomes.

This book is intended for students and researchers in the field of pharmacology who have particular interests in drug delivery, targeting, and formulation, as well as for clinicians such as oncologists who are interested in the field. People who work at regulatory agencies should also be aware such that drugs with great potential are being developed and will be beneficial to many patients, as well as to health insurance agencies because of improved cost effectiveness.

This 3rd edition provides updated information on side effects of cosmetic products, topical and systemic drugs used in dermatology, and other therapeutic modalities used by dermatologists including PUVA therapy and (new in this edition) dermal implants, laser therapy, chemical face peels and cryotherapy.

Because of the explosion of new knowledge since the last edition (the 2nd edition of this book was published 8 years ago), the section on cosmetics has largely been rewritten and extended, the section on side effects of systemic drugs used in dermatology has also been expanded, and the index of drugs has been made comprehensive.

This book will be of great value to the practising physician who is confronted with a (possible) adverse reaction to a cosmetic or drug used in dermatological practice as well as to those who are scientifically interested, by providing access to recent relevant literature.

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a major public health problem in the United States. The estimated 12-month and lifetime prevalence values for AUD are 13.9% and 29.1%, respectively, with approximately half of individuals with lifetime AUD having a severe disorder. AUD and its sequelae also account for significant excess mortality and cost the United States more than $200 billion annually. Despite its high prevalence and numerous negative consequences, AUD remains undertreated. In fact, fewer than 1 in 10 individuals in the United States with a 12-month diagnosis of AUD receive any treatment. Nevertheless, effective and evidence-based interventions are available, and treatment is associated with reductions in the risk of relapse and AUD-associated mortality. The American Psychiatric Association Practice Guideline for the Pharmacological Treatment of Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder seeks to reduce these substantial psychosocial and public health consequences of AUD for millions of affected individuals. The guideline focuses specifically on evidence-based pharmacological treatments for AUD in outpatient settings and includes additional information on assessment and treatment planning, which are an integral part of using pharmacotherapy to treat AUD. In addition to reviewing the available evidence on the use of AUD pharmacotherapy, the guideline offers clear, concise, and actionable recommendation statements, each of which is given a rating that reflects the level of confidence that potential benefits of an intervention outweigh potential harms. The guideline provides guidance on implementing these recommendations into clinical practice, with the goal of improving quality of care and treatment outcomes of AUD.

In Hormone Therapy in Breast and Prostate Cancer, many of today's leading researchers and clinicians describe the principles underlying targeted hormonal treatments, assess the actions of new and established agents, and illustrate the new applications of hormonal chemoprevention for breast cancer. Topics range from preclinical and clinical antiestrogens to the inhibition of estrogen synthesis and the effects of androgen withdrawal. A wide variety of proven and new agents are discussed-antiestrogens, including aromatase inhibitors (anastrozole, letrozole, and others), SERMs (tamoxifen, raloxifene, and others), and such antiandrogenic strategies as goserelin and bicalutamide.

By guiding in the application of techniques and tools for predicting ADMET outcomes in drug candidates, Predictive ADMET offers a road map for drug discovery scientists to generate effective and safe drugs for unmet medical needs. Featuring case studies and lessons learned from real drug discovery and development, the text: helps users diagnose ADMET problems; presents appropriate recommendations; introduces the current clinical practice for drug discovery and development; and consolidates the tools and models to intelligently integrate existing in silico, in vitro and in vivo ADMET data.

This book focuses on how obesity and sedentary lifestyles adversely affect cancer risk and survival for individuals as well as mechanisms that may underlie those associations. However, evidence is accumulating rapidly on the cost of obesity and sedentary lifestyles to society. For example, obesity is estimated to lead to costs of $147 billion in the US.6 While research on individual level interventions for weight loss and increasing physical activity have identified efficacious approaches, these changes in behavior are not maintained by many in the current environments in the US and worldwide that promote weight gain and inactivity. Research on environmental and policy approaches for addressing these problems at the societal level is needed7, 8 and is a major component of the President's Report on Childhood Obesity released in April 2010. The epidemic of overweight and obesity and the increasing sedentary lifestyles will impact the magnitude and quality of the cancer problem globally. Increasing the knowledge of scientists, clinicians, and policy experts will aid in defining new prevention and treatment methods, to reduce the impact of energy balance on cancer, with the goal to eventually reduce the burden of cancer. Hopefully, this knowledge can be translated into incentives for the general public, persons at high risk, and cancer patients and survivors to increase physical activity, reduce excess weight, and maintain energy balance lifelong.

27 chapters cover the distribution, economic importance, conventional propagation, micropropagation, tissue culture studies, and in vitro production of important medicinal and other pharmaceutical compounds in various species of Anchusa, Brucea, Catharanthus, Chrysanthemum, Coleus, Corydalis, Coreopsis, Emilia, Ginkgo, Gloriosa, Hypericum, Inonotus, Leucosceptrum, Lilium, Linum, Mosses, Nandina, Penstemon, Prunus, Pteridium, Quassia, Ribes, Senecio, Taraxacum, Thermopsis, Vanilla, and Vitiveria. Like the previous five volumes on medicinal and aromatic plants (Volumes 4, 7, 15, 21, and 24), this book contains a wealth of useful information for advanced students and researchers in the field of plant biotechnology and chemical engineering, pharmacy, botany and tissue culture.

Thoroughly revised and updated, "Optimization in Drug Discovery: In Vitro Methods, Second Edition" presents a wide spectrum of in vitro assays including formulation, plasma binding, absorption and permeability, cytochrome P450 (CYP) and UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGT) metabolism, CYP inhibition and induction, drug transporters, drug-drug interactions via assessment of reactive metabolites, genotoxicity, and chemical and photo-mutagenicity assays. Written for the "Methods in Pharmacology and Toxicology" series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Expert authors have developed and utilized these in vitro assays to achieve drug-like characteristics in addition to efficacy properties and good safety profiles of drug candidates.

Comprehensive and up-to-date, "Optimization in Drug Discovery: In Vitro Methods, Second Edition" aims to guide researchers down the difficult path to successful drug discovery and development."

Neuroscience Perspectives provides multidisciplinary reviews of topics in one of the most diverse and rapidly advancing fields in the life sciences.
Whether you are a new recruit to neuroscience, or an established expert, look to this series for 'one-stop' sources of the historical, physiological, pharmacological, biochemical, molecular biological and therapeutic aspects of chosen research areas.
Although peripheral type benzodiazepne recognition sites have been demonstrated in the brain and peripheral organs of various species for more than 10 years, the exact physiological function or pharmacological effects have not yet been established. Peripheral benzodiazepine literature is so overwhelming that the novice may find it virtually impossible to form a clear idea about the diverse findings.
This volume, dedicated exclusively to pBR and their natural and synthetic ligands, puts the available data into perspective.
A truly interdisciplinary approach has brought neuroscientists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and immunologists together to work on the description of pBR-mediated effects. The chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology of the pBR receptor and its ligands are reviewed, their pharmacological usefulness is conjectured, and thus a true overview of the field is provided.
* SPECIAL FEATURES
* This volume follows the Neuroscience Perspectives brief of providing a historical background, pharmacological, biochemical and physiological aspects of research and therapeutic potential, of its chosen topic.
* The peripheral benzodiazepine recognition site has been recognised for more than ten years, but the exact physiological and pharmacological effects have not yet been established.

This book reviews recent breakthroughs in anti-cancer drug discovery. Building on the previous volume in the series, it outlines some of the most significant developments that have occurred in the field in the subsequent period that have led to new drug approvals or promising clinical candidates. The volume is divided into chapters that each relate to a specific protein or protein class. Each chapter provides an overview of the underlying biology and then emphasises the medicinal chemistry strategies and tactics that led to the most significant drugs and drug candidates. A summary of clinical data and the future outlook for the field is also provided. Each chapter is authored by experts in the topic and who have themselves made significant contributions to their respective fields.

'It is indeed the merit of Dr. Alan F. Casy to bring in these pages a clear and comprehensive view of medicinal stereochemistry, a discipline in which he has been active and successful for many years both as a teacher and a researcher. Written for graduate students and research workers in medicinal chemistry and pharmacology, this book will contribute significantly towards a better education of scientists by removing the fear of stereochemistry caused by ignorance, moderating the overconfidence of possible zealots, and outlining a broader context.'-from the foreword by Bernard Testa

"Molecular Pharmacognosy" discusses the application of molecular biology in resource science and authentication of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). This book reviews the latest developments in pharmacognosy, introduces a series of new views and insights, presents the hotspots and focus of the field of study on molecular pharmacognosy, and predicts a new direction of study on the resource science of TCM. Furthermore, the book also provides an open communications platform for the development of molecular pharmacognosy. This book is intended for biomedical scientists and researchers in the fields of molecular biology, traditional medicine and natural pharmaceutics.

Professor Lu-qi Huang is Director of the Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization for Traditional Medicine (Chinese Materia Medica) and Vice-Chairman of the Australia Chinese Association for Biomedical Sciences Inc.

This comprehensive volume focuses on anti-inflammatory nutraceuticals and their role in various chronic diseases. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs such as steroids, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), statins and metformin have been shown to modulate inflammatory pathways, but their long-term intake has been associated with numerous side effects. This means that there is enormous potential for dietary agents that can modulate inflammatory pathways in humans. Leading experts describe the latest research on the role of anti-inflammatory nutraceuticals in preventing and treating chronic diseases.

During the last decade or so vaccine development has been facilitated by rapid advances in molecular and cell biology. These have laid the foundations of a new generation of vaccines exemplified by subunit vaccines produced through gene cloning and by synthetic peptides mimicking small regions of proteins on the outer coat of viruses. Such peptide~ are capable of eliciting virus-neutralizing antibodies. Unfortunately, subunit and peptide vaccines are only weakly or non immunogenic in the absence of immunological adjuvants that are known to augment specific cell-mediated immune responses to the antigens and to promote the formation of protective antibodies. This book contains the proceedings of the 4th NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) "Vaccines: New Generation Immunological Adjuvants" held at Cape Sounion Beach, Greece, during 24 June -5 . July 1994 and deals in depth with both theoretical and practical aspects of vaccinology. These include the role of antigen presenting cells in the induction of immune responses. immunopotentiation by a variety of new generation immunological adjuvants and vaccine carriers. and recent advances and perspectives in experimental vaccines as well as vaccinatioll with nucleic acids. We express our appreciation to Dr. K. Dalsgaard and Dr. J. L. Virelizier for their cooperatioll in planning the ASI and to Mrs. Concha Pening for her excellent production of the manuscripts. The ASI was held under the sponsorship of NATO Scientific Affairs Division and generously co-sponsored by SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (Philadelphia).