This book examines the fundamental concepts of multimodality small-animal molecular imaging technologies and their numerous applications in biomedical research. Driven primarily by the widespread availability of various small-animal models of human diseases replicating accurately biological and biochemical processes in vivo, this is a relatively new yet rapidly expanding field that has excellent potential to become a powerful tool in biomedical research and drug development. In addition to being a powerful clinical tool, a number of imaging modalities including but not limited to CT, MRI, SPECT and PET are also used in small laboratory animal research to visualize and track certain molecular processes associated with diseases such as cancer, heart disease and neurological disorders in living small animal models of disease. In vivo small-animal imaging is playing a pivotal role in the scientific research paradigm enabling to understand human molecular biology and pathophysiology using, for instance, genetically engineered mice with spontaneous diseases that closely mimic human diseases.

"Advances in Cancer Research" provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. Here, once again, outstanding and original reviews are presented on a variety of topics.
Provides information on cancer researchOutstanding and original reviewsSuitable for researchers and students

This book outlines comprehensively the main medical uses of aptamers, from diagnosis to therapeutics in fourteen chapters. Pioneering topics covered include aptamer pharmaceuticals, aptamers for malign tumors, aptamers for personalized therapeutics and aptamers for point-of-care testing. The book offers an essential guide for medical scientists interested in developing aptamer-based schemes for better theranostics. It is therefore of interest for not only academic researchers, but also practitioners and medical researchers in various fields of medical science, medical research and bio-analytical chemistry.

The EQ-5D instrument, as a standardized, cross-culturally validated measure of self-assessed health has a hugely important role in understanding population health within and across countries. Over the past two decades a wealth of international population health survey data have been accumulated by the EuroQol Group from research conducted in many countries across four continents. One of the success factors of the EQ-5D instruments has been the easy availability of national or international sets of EQ-5D data, as well as clear explanations and guidance for users. There is an unmet need to produce a comprehensive book that captures up-to-date and expanded information of EQ-5D self-reported health and index values. EQ-5D population norms and cross-country analyses are provided from representative national surveys of 20 countries and additional regional surveys. This book will be a must for those who believe that how people report and value health is very important.

This volume provides key molecular biological protocols and experimental strategies currently employed to study the various stages of mammary gland development. Chapters are divided into four parts covering genetically modified mouse models that exhibit prenatal and pubertal mammary gland phenotypes, 2D and 3D-model culture systems, methodologies for mammary stem cell isolation, and translational applications that provide a bridge between experimental studies of mammary gland development and the study of human breast cancer. 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, Mammary Gland Development: Methods and Protocols will be useful for researchers whose primary interest is in mammary gland development; developmental biologists, epithelial cell biologists, and those with an interest in molecular mechanisms underlying breast cancer.

Prescription drugs are a basic and invaluable part of society today, but there is debate surrounding the methods of testing new drugs, the possible misuse of prescription drugs, and the economics of drug production and use. This book examines the evolution of prescription drugs in the United States, as well as the formation of the pharmaceutical industry. It begins with a history of prescription drugs, dating back to their origins, then moves through the Industrial Revolution and into the present day. It also delves into the issues and controversies related to prescription drugs, such as drug costs, regulations, prescription drug abuse, insurance complications, and more. Both implemented and proposed solutions are also discussed. One of the most valuable aspects of the book is that it surveys the history of prescription drugs in a manner that helps the reader identify key issues in an easy-to-understand fashion. Finally, the perspectives chapter allows a broad range of voices to be heard, allowing crucial, diverse perspectives to round out the author's expertise. Provides readers with an understanding of the various types of drugs and how they differ in their effects and possible applications Introduces a detailed review of the steps involved in the preclinical, clinical, and post-clinical stages of testing of a new prescription drug Outlines some major issues in the way experimental drugs are tested, such as gender, age, and racial bias Reviews the current status of prescription drug abuse in the United States Explains issues involved in the pricing of prescription drugs and issues involved in over-pricing

With the discovery of stem cells capable of multiplying indefinitely in culture and differentiating into many other cell types in appropriate conditions, new hopes were born in repair and replacement of damaged cells and tissues. The features of stem cells may provide treatment for some incurable diseases with some therapies are already in clinics, particularly those from adult stem cells. Some treatments will require large number of cells and may also require multiple doses, generating a growing demand for generating and processing large numbers of cells to meet the need of clinical applications. With this in mind, our aim is to provide a book on the subject of stem cells and cell therapy for researchers and students of cell biotechnology, bioengineering and bioproduction. This book is exceptional as it teaches researchers stem cells and cell therapy in that it covers the concepts and backgrounds necessary so that readers get a good understanding of the production of stem cells. The book covers three topics: The basics of stem cells and cell therapy, the use of stem cells for the treatment of human diseases, and stem cell processing. It includes chapters on neural and vascular stem vascular stem cell therapy, expansion engineering of embryonic stem cells, stem cell based production of blood cells and separation technologies for stem cells and cell therapy products. It is an informed and informative presentation of what modern research, science and engineering have learned about stem cells and their production and therapies. Addressing both the medical and production issues, this book is an invaluable contribution to having an academic and industrial understanding with respect to R&D and manufacturing of clinical grade stem cells.

This new volume of Current Topics in Developmental Biology covers Stem Cells in Development and Disease. The chapters provide a comprehensive set of reviews covering such topics as the mechanisms of pluripotency in vivo and in vitro, hematopoietic stem cell development, intestinal stem cells and their defining niche, epithelial stem cells in adult skin, the mammary stem cell hierarchy, satellite cells, neural stem cells of the hippocampus, lung stem and progenitor cells in tissue homeostasis and disease, spermatogonial stem cell functions in physiological and pathological conditions, the origin, biology, and therapeutic potential of facultative adult hepatic progenitor cells, nephron progenitor cells, adult stem cell niches, cancer stem cells, pluripotency and cellular heterogeneity, and cellular mechanisms of somatic stem cell aging
Covers the area of Stem Cells in Development and DiseaseInternational board of authors Provides a comprehensive set of reviews covering such topics as Intestinal Stem Cells, Nephron Stem Cells/Progenitors, Skin epithelial Stem Cells and Lung Stem Cells

"Toxicogenomics-Based Cellular Models" is a unique and valuable reference for all academic and professional researchers employing toxicogenomic methods with respect to animal testing for chemical safety. This resource offers cutting-edge information on the application of toxicogenomics to developing alternatives to current animal toxicity tests. By illustrating the development of toxicogenomics-based cellular models for critical endpoints of toxicity and providing real-world examples for validation and data analysis, this book provides an assessment of the current state of the field, as well as opportunities and challenges for the future. Written by renowned international toxicological experts, this book explores omics technology for developing new assays for toxicity testing and safety assessment and provides the reader with a focused examination of alternative means to animal testing.
Describes the state-of-the-art in developing toxicogenomics-based cellular models for chemical-induced carcinogenicity, immunotoxicity, developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity and reproduction toxicityIllustrates how to validate toxicogenomics-based alternative test models and provides an outlook to societal and economic implementation of these novel assaysIncludes an overview of current testing methods and risk assessment frameworksProvides a real-world assessment by articulating the current development and challenges in toxicogenomics while suggesting ways to move this field forward"

This volume provides a set of reviews dedicated to the biology of Interleukin (IL)-10. It includes chapters on its importance for maintaining immune homeostasis in humans, its role in intestinal immunity and its functions during viral and bacterial infections. In addition, it presents reviews on the mechanisms linking innate microbial recognition to the production of IL-10 and on how IL-10 recognition by its receptor functions. The roles of T and B cells as relevant sources of IL-10 are also discussed, with an emphasis on the clinical opportunities offered by IL-10-producing Tr1 cells for the suppression of unwanted immunity. Finally, the functions of other cytokines of the IL-10 family are presented. Collectively, these articles provide a comprehensive overview of our current knowledge on one of the most important anti-inflammatory cytokines known to date.

This book addresses the pressing issues involved with the ethical conduct of research in one developing world region - the Arab Region. Clinical research has soared in the developing world -as pharmaceutical companies continue their search for regions with large, treatment naive populations - including the Arab region, and has profound implications for the health and the economies for the area. The ethical issues involved with the conduct of such research, however, have so far not been adequately addressed. This volume presents the issues regarding research ethics and research governance that have relevance for health authorities, regulators, industry, and academia. As a multi-authored volume it includes both international and local experts on ethical issues in research, representing all stakeholders, thus presenting a balanced view on this timely topic.

Recent evidence demonstrates that normal prostate tissue contains stem cells. There is also accumulating evidence that prostate cancer contains a population of cells with stem cell-like characteristics referred to as cancer stem cells, or tumor initiating cells. Both the normal prostate stem cell and cancer stem cell populations have important implications for the generation, therapeutic targeting, and prevention of prostate cancer. The purpose of this book is to explore the role of stem cells in prostate cancer, which is becoming an increasingly hot trend in cancer research.

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 book is the 4th in a series of Acute Care books written with the aim to address the NEEDS of health care providers when handling the acutely ill patients. Globally it has become apparent that the study of pharmacology and subsequent clinical training has not always adequately equipped young doctors with the ability to administer drugs to their patients safely and confidently, particularly in the critically ill patient. Compounding this issue is the lack of resource material related to these pharmacological concepts contained in one book that can help health care providers to understand and manage drug therapy in the acute situation. In spite of progressively newer and more developed protocols, guidelines, algorithms and many other books addressing the technical aspects of what needs to be done, most health care providers still find it difficult to grasp the basic pharmacological knowledge and rationally deliver the CARE that is required in the acute phase of patient management. The editors/authors have therefore aimed for a book that highlights topics and pharmacological issues pertinent to management of patients in their hour of need. This is a multi-author book but the style has been guided by 3 editors. The editors have used a different perspective - that of normalizing abnormal physiological processes with pharmacological agents - to address the GAPS in a bedside to bench approach. The details are pared down but important principles/concepts are emphasized.

Over the past decade, significant efforts have been made to develop stem cell-based therapies for difficult to treat diseases. Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells, also referred to as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), appear to hold great promise in regards to a regenerative cell-based therapy for the treatment of these diseases. Currently, more than 200 clinical trials are underway worldwide exploring the use of MSCs for the treatment of a wide range of disorders including bone, cartilage and tendon damage, myocardial infarction, graft-versus-host disease, Crohn s disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, critical limb ischemia and many others.

MSCs were first identified by Friendenstein and colleagues as an adherent stromal cell population within the bone marrow with the ability to form clonogenic colonies "in vitro. "In regards to the basic biology associated with MSCs, there has been tremendous progress towards understanding this cell population s phenotype and function from a range of tissue sources. Despite enormous progress and an overall increased understanding of MSCs at the molecular and cellular level, several critical questions remain to be answered in regards to the use of these cells in therapeutic applications. Clinically, both autologous and allogenic approaches for the transplantation of MSCs are being explored. Several of the processing steps needed for the clinical application of MSCs, including isolation from various tissues, scalable "in vitro "expansion, cell banking, dose preparation, quality control parameters, delivery methods and numerous others are being extensively studied. Despite a significant number of ongoing clinical trials, none of the current therapeutic approaches have, at this point, become a standard of care treatment. Although exceptionally promising, the clinical translation of MSC-based therapies is still a work in progress.

The extensive number of ongoing clinical trials is expected to provide a clearer path forward for the realization and implementation of MSCs in regenerative medicine. Towards this end, reviews of current clinical trial results and discussions of relevant topics association with the clinical application of MSCs are compiled in this book from some of the leading researchers in this exciting and rapidly advancing field. Although not absolutely all-inclusive, we hope the chapters within this book can promote and enable a better understanding of the translation of MSCs from bench-to-bedside and inspire researchers to further explore this promising and quickly evolving field.

Lynch syndrome (LS) is the most common cause of inherited colorectal cancer, a disease with a high mortality rate. An estimated 37,000 of diagnosed colorectal cancer cases worldwide are attributed to Lynch syndrome each year. Intensive cancer screening, with early initiation and frequent follow-up, can reduce colorectal cancer incidence and mortality in LS patients. This book provides an up-to-date overview on the genetic and epigenetic basis of Lynch syndrome. It evaluates clinical features of the disease and critically comments on molecular tools available for identifying mutations responsible for Lynch syndrome; in addition the importance of functional assays that can help clarify the clinical nature of identified mutations is also discussed. The book also focuses on challenges in genetic counselling of at-risk individuals and discusses related ethical issues. The purpose of the book is to give a concise knowledge base for the broader scientific and medical community, including genetic counselors, in order to improve awareness on the potential impact that the diagnosis of LS has on treatment, management and surveillance of LS patients.

In this volume, a wide-ranging series of reviews reveal how systems biology -- a holistic and inter-disciplinary approach requiring the combined talents of biologists, mathematicians, and computer scientists -- is changing the face of infectious disease research. Leading experts discuss how the use of high-throughput and computational approaches are generating exciting -- and often unexpected -- new insights into the microbial-host interactions of a variety of bacterial and viral pathogens, including Salmonella, Yersinia, Mycobacterium, influenza virus, human and simian immunodeficiency virus, and hepatitis C virus. Additional chapters focus on systems approaches to innate immunity, intra- and inter- cellular signaling, biomarker discovery, and the evaluation and rational development of improved vaccines. Systems biology has both been hailed as a paradigm shift that will revolutionize biological science and criticized as overly expensive and complex. While the truth no doubt lies somewhere in between, the approach is yielding increasingly detailed and comprehensive views of biological systems and processes, including those that dictate the host response to infection and disease outcome. Systems Biology of Infectious Disease is highly informative reading for investigators already engaged in systems biology research as well as for those scientists and clinicians who may be seeking an introduction to the field.

Molecular pathology is based on the emergence of new techniques that greatly enhance the diagnostic accuracy when facing with challenging differential diagnoses. In addition, new molecular techniques are entering the clinical arena for their value in predicting therapy response and tumor prognosis. This book provides a guide for the practicing pathologist and for both pathology residents and fellows during the daily sign-out of challenging cases. The book is organized by anatomical systems and provides a detailed description of molecular tests that may help in the diagnosis. Furthermore, a description of the current molecular tests required to identify patients for treatment is offered. The application of molecular pathology techniques to the clinical practice has already shown its usefulness and the number of such tests is growing exponentially as more molecular targets are discovered. Molecular Pathology and Diagnostics of Cancer will give practicing and training pathologists an up-to date resource to guide the correct management of pathology cases requiring molecular testing.

Alternative medicine: Herbal drugs and their critical appraisal - Part II.- Virus population dynamics, fitness variations and the control of viral disease: an update.- Applications of yeast in drug discovery.- Sympathetic nervous system and experimental diabetes: role of adrenal medullary hormones.- From outer to inner space: Traveling along a scientific career from astrochemistry to drug research.- Index Vol. 57.- Index of titles, Vol. 1-57.- Author and paper index, Vol. 1-57.

Written to satisfy a wide audience, from basic scientist to clinical researcher, this volume explores such varied concepts as: the influence of CBF in the pathotrajectory of TBI, modeling TBI as a means to understand underlying pathological states associated with brain injury victims, disrupted vasculature following head trauma and advanced imaging techniques, vasoreactive substances underlying disrupted blood flow, the role of age and sex on injury outcome, and the latest pre-clinical rationale for focusing on CBF and strategies to improve blood flow as a means to improve outcome in patients suffering the effects of TBI.

The purpose of this publication is to introduce a new, simpler and more effective way in which to interpret pharmaceutical aerosol particle size data from orally inhaled products (OIPs). Currently, the compendial and regulatory requirements dictate the need for measurements by full resolution multi-stage cascade impactor (CI), a process that is demanding for the operator, time consuming, prone to experimental error, and challenging for method transfers from one laboratory to another. Furthermore, we shall show that the current practice of reducing information from mass-weighted aerodynamic particle size distribution (APSD) measurements through the use of CI stage groupings is not the most effective decision-making tool for OIP quality control (QC) in comparison with newly introduced, mutually-independent efficient data analysis (EDA) metrics that can be derived either from full resolution or abbreviated impactor measurements (AIM).

"Advances in Cancer Research" provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. Here, once again, outstanding and original reviews are presented on a variety of topics. This volume covers AEG-1/MTDH/Lyric implicated in multiple human cancers.
Provides information on cancer researchOutstanding and original reviewsSuitable for researchers and students

5-Hydroxytryptamine (5-HT)4 receptors and central nervous system function: An update.- Chemical teratogenesis in humans: Biochemical and molecular mechanisms.- Recent advances in potassium channel modulation.- Neuronal prostacyclin receptors.- Effects of NSAIDs on the kidney.- G protein coupled receptors as modules of interacting proteins: A family meeting.- Antifungal therapy, an everlasting battle.- Index - Sachverzeichnis - Table des matieres, vol. 49.- Index of titles - Verzeichnis der Titel - Index des titres vol. 1-49.- Author and paper index - Autoren- und Artikelindex - Index des auteurs et des articles, vol. 1-49.

"Advances in Cancer Research" provides invaluable information on the exciting and fast-moving field of cancer research. Here, once again, outstanding and original reviews are presented on a variety of topics.

With an emphasis on applications of computational models for solving modern challenging problems in biomedical and life sciences, this book aims to bring collections of articles from biologists, medical/biomedical and health science researchers together with computational scientists to focus on problems at the frontier of biomedical and life sciences. The goals of this book are to build interactions of scientists across several disciplines and to help industrial users apply advanced computational techniques for solving practical biomedical and life science problems. This book is for users in the fields of biomedical and life sciences who wish to keep abreast with the latest techniques in signal and image analysis. The book presents a detailed description to each of the applications. It can be used by those both at graduate and specialist levels.