This timely book discusses antimicrobial drug resistance, specifically, the resistance against the beta-lactam class of antibiotics by Gram-Negative bacteria. The book is broadly divided into five sections. The first section describes the underlying mechanisms of antimicrobial resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. It gives an insight into the beta-lactamases, their types, classification, inhibitors, etc. The second section delves deep into the genetic basis of resistance. It talks about transposons, integrons, insertion sequences associated with antibiotic-resistant genes. The next section describes phenotypic and molecular methods to detect beta-lactam resistance. The fourth section talks about the epidemiology and prevalence of beta-lactamases in the environment. The last section of the book describes the various therapeutic options to combat this growing public threat of antimicrobial resistance. It talks about the current reserve drugs, as well as the newer antibiotic agents that are in the pipeline. This book is essential for clinical practitioners, students, and researchers in basic and medical microbiology.

The collection of chapters in this proceeding volume reflects the latest research presented at the Aegean meeting on Tumor Microenvironment and Cellular Stress held in Crete in Fall of 2012. The book provides critical insight to how the tumor microenvironment affects tumor metabolism, cell stemness, cell viability, genomic instability and more. Additional topics include identifying common pathways that are potential candidates for therapeutic intervention, which will stimulate collaboration between groups that are more focused on elucidation of biochemical aspects of stress biology and groups that study the pathophysiological aspects of stress pathways or engaged in drug discovery.

The book presents current affairs of Sporotrichosis as emergent disease with emphasis on the potential factors associated with genetic polymorphisms in Sporothrix complex. Constitutive and inducible factors play an essential role in the response of the fungal cell to the environment as determinant in the immunopathogenicity, highlighting clinical forms of Sporotrichosis and host immunocompetence. Also, a current issue interest in zoonotic transmission showing that a cat is the animal species most affected by Sporothrix species and their importance in the involvement in the human transmission. Readers can associate parameters of experimental immune response to disease development as well as the diagnostic, prophylaxis, and therapies that can be applied in the near future.

Provides a detailed survey of new therapies for autoimmune diseases, exploring the rationale for their use and clinical data regarding their potential benefit. The book emphasizes biological interventions based on the pathogenesis of autoimmunity, ranging from altering tolerance to modifying cytokines and changing lymphocyte function.

Macrophages are a key component of the innate immune system and play an integral role in host defense and homeostasis. On one hand, these cells contribute to host defence by triggering inflammation, displaying microbicidal/tumoricidal properties, regulating the activation of adaptive immunity and promoting resolution of inflammation. On the other hand, they contribute to essential trophic functions such as neural patterning, bone morphogenesis and ductal branching in mammary glands. Thus, macrophages are extremely versatile cells that can respond efficiently to tissue micro environmental cues by polarizing to distinct phenotypes, depending on the functions they need to perform. Indeed, functional diversity and plasticity are hallmarks of these cells.

Macrophages may also play a detrimental role. An overwhelming body of literature has indicated their crucial role in pathogenesis. The list includes sepsis, cancer, metabolic syndrome, immunodeficiency, auto-immune disease-virtually impacting every major pathology that we know. These observations have suggested macrophages and their related molecules as potential targets in therapeutic applications. Available evidence proclaims macrophages as a key player in homeostasis, host defense and disease. Crucial developments in the past few years call for a re-evaluation and update of our understanding of macrophages. The present book is an endeavour that attempts provide state-of-the art knowledge of these cells in health and disease.

Recent outbreaks of swine influenza and avian influenza, along with the remaining and in some cases expanding threats from HIV, dengue virus, and the viruses causing hepatitis, have reinforced the need for rapid, accurate and cost-effective diagnosis of viral disease. Diagnostic Virology Protocols, Second Edition brings the field fully up-to-date with a focus on protocols involving nucleic acid detection, most often through some form of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The expert contributors also delve into the key technology of robotics as well as future prospects, such as further refined point-of-care testing and the increasing importance of mathematical modelling. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series format, chapters include brief 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, Diagnostic Virology Protocols, Second Edition captures the dramatic changes in the virus diagnostic laboratory in order to better prepare scientists to combat the inevitable threats to public health from future and present infectious diseases.

Indigenous Fermented Foods for the Tropics provides insights on fermented foods of the Tropics, particularly Africa, Asia and South America, highlighting key aspects and potential developments for these food products. Sections provide an overview on the production and composition (nutritional, physicochemical, health beneficial and microbiota) of these indigenous fermented foods in the tropics, focus on innovative techniques for investigating the composition of these fermented food products and improvement of the fermentation process to yield better nutritional constituents, health beneficial components and sensory qualities, and cover safety aspects to be considered in fermented foods. Final sections provide insights on the packaging and marketing of these food products. This book provides new perspectives and recent information to complement existing texts on indigenous fermented foods serving as a valuable reference text for detailed insights into indigenous fermented foods of the tropics.

Diversity, Distribution, and Current Status is the first volume in a three-volume series dedicated to the analysis of this important group of plant pathogens across Asia with a particular focus on geographic distribution. This book offers updated data on the most prevalent phytoplasma diseases specific to each region. Phytoplasmas are emerging plant pathogens all around the world, causing significant economic losses to crops, as well as affecting international trade. The chapters in Volume 1 look closely at different countries and regions across Asia, providing data on country-wide distribution, phytoplasma groups, insect vectors and transmission. The Phytoplama Diseases in Asian Countries series will be an essential read for university students, researchers and agriculturalists interested in Plant Pathology. Volume 1 will be of particular interest to those needing the latest data on the distribution and transmission rates specific to the various regions of Asia.

Concerted efforts to study starvation and survival of nondifferentiating vegeta tive heterotrophic bacteria have been made with various degrees of intensity, in different bacteria and contexts, over more than the last 30 years. As with bacterial growth in natural ecosystem conditions, these research efforts have been intermittent, with rather long periods of limited or no production in between. While several important and well-received reviews and proceedings on the topic of this monograph have been published during the last three to four decades, the last few years have seen a marked increase in reviews on starvation survival in non-spore-forming bacteria. This increase reflects a realization that the biology of bacteria in natural conditions is generally not that of logarithmic growth and that we have very limited information on the physiology of the energy-and nutrient-limited phases of the life cyde of the bacterial cello The growing interest in nongrowing bacteria also sterns from the more recent advances on the molecular basis of the starvation-induced nongrowing bacterial cello The identification of starvation-specific gene and protein re sponders in Escherichia coli as weIl as other bacterial species has provided molecular handles for our attempts to decipher the "differentiation-like" responses and programs that nondifferentiating bacteria exhibit on nutrient limited growth arrest. Severallaboratories have contributed greatly to the progress made in life after-log research."

In recent years remarkable progress has been accomplished with respect to our knowledge about bacterial protein toxins. This refers especially to structural aspects of protein toxins but also holds true for genetics, molecular biology and biochemical mechanisms underlying the action of toxins. This volume covers the very current and exciting aspects of up-to-date bacterial toxicology and comprehensively reviews the most important bacterial protein toxins such as the intracellular acting toxins which exhibit enzyme activity, as well as those toxins that interact with cell plasma membranes by damaging the membranes (pore formation) or stimulating cell receptors (superantigens). This is the most current reference work on these important bacterial protein toxins, which are presented from the point of view of different disciplines such as pharmacology, microbiology, cell biology and protein chemistry.

This book aims to cover the applications of nanotechnology against human infectious diseases. The chapters of the book discuss the role of nanotechnology in the efficient diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. It explicitly provides an overview of nanodiagnostics for infectious diseases from nanoparticles-based, nanodevice-based, and point-of-care platforms. The book also covers the state-of-the-art review of recent progress in biomimetic and bioengineered nanotherapies to treat infectious diseases. It also presents a nano carrier-based CRISPR/Cas9 delivery system for gene editing and its applications for developing interventional approaches against communicable diseases. Further, it reviews the recent developments in nanotechnology to engineer nanoparticles with desired physicochemical properties as a line of defense against multi-drug resistance micro-organisms. Cutting across the disciplines, this book serves as a guide for researchers in biotechnology, parasitology, and nanotechnology.

Since the central theme of this book is the transmission of disease agents through the food chain, we will examine influenza viruses from this perspective. Influenza A viruses are found in humans, pigs, horses, sea mammals, and also in wild aquatic and domestic birds 23]. How are they spread? Between mammals, influenza is an airborne infection, but between birds, influenza can be either an airborne or waterborne infection. Influenza viruses of aquatic birds periodically transmit to domestic birds sometimes with catastrophic effects; this transmis sion can be either airborne or waterborne. Less frequently, avian influenza viruses transmit to mammals and three to four times in the past century this transmission has initiated a pandemic of influenza in humans. The method of spread of avian influenza viruses to mammals remains unresolved, but could be either airborne or waterborne. In this report we will consider recent examples of interspecies transmission of influenza A viruses and the possible prevention of emergence of the next human pandemic which is considered imminent. The reservoirs of influenza A viruses The available evidence indicates that aquatic birds are the reservoirs of all 15 subtypes of influenza A viruses. We will first consider the replication of influenza A in aquatic birds. In wild ducks, influenza viruses replicate preferentially in the cells lining the intestinal tract, cause no disease signs, and 8 7 are excreted in high concentrations in the feces (up to 10 ."

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is highly endemic for several neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), including viral, bacterial, protozoan and helminth infections. This new volume covers the most prevalent NTDs found in about 22 MENA countries emphasizing the disease burden, clinical manifestations and control approaches. Each individual chapter deals with one specific disease and is written by a group of experts on that topic.

T-Helper Cells: Methods and Protocols presents a broad selection of cutting edge protocols that will enable the reader to capture the unique features of TH cells with tools developed for the isolation of TH cells from various tissues and subsequent analysis of their functional properties in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo. Chapters cover methods of isolating T cells from various tissues in mice, protocols for the analysis of T cell function and phenotype using various cutting edge technologies, methods allowing for the manipulation of T cell function in vitro and in vivo, and in vivo models of diseases in which T cells play a central role in the pathogenesis. Written in the 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 protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and easily accessible, T-Helper Cells: Methods and Protocols seeks to serve both professionals and novices with its well-honed methodologies in an effort to further the study of this amazingly versatile and potent cell type.

Food Quality Analysis: Applications of Analytical Methods Coupled With Artificial Intelligence provides different spectroscopic techniques and their application to food quality analysis, with the unique approach of adding multivariate analysis as well as artificial intelligence applications. It also brings chromatographic methods for the analysis of a wide range of food items including wheat flours, oils and fats. Written by a team of interdisciplinary experts, this is a valuable resource for researchers and personnel involved in food industries.

Towards the end of this century we celebrate three great discoveries of the last one - of X-rays in 1895, of radioactivity in 1896 and of radium in 1898 - and recall the pioneering achievements that founded the new science of radiology and changed the face of medicine forever. Dr Mould's comprehensive centennial history makes a unique contribution to the telling of this entertaining story - in the unusual and accessible style of a 'radiological photograph album'. Over 700 historical illustrations, with full and informative captions, are supported by short introductory essays to blow the dust off our fascinating radiological past in an easily readable style. The focus of this book is on the historically more interesting earlier years - of discovery and invention, diagnosis and therapy, dosimetry, risk and protection. The photographic record is complemented by archival accounts of the pioneer scientists and physicians, and of their early patients, and is interspersed with a variety of radiological anecdotes. In the several chapters on diagnostic techniques, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine the history is nevertheless brought up to date so that the old methodologies may be contrasted with newer technologies. The medical theme is itself complemented by two interesting chapters on museum and industrial applications of radiography. The predominantly photographic presentation of this book is derived from the author's earlier but smaller A History of X-rays and Radium, no longer available yet still of enduring interest. Research has been based on original source material which is fully cited and the illustrations and text are comprehensively indexed for easy retrieval of the wide variety ofpeople, techniques, apparatus and examples featured throughout this radiological journey.

This detailed new edition compiles fully updated practical methodologies and approaches for diagnosticians and researchers working toward a better understanding of animal coronaviruses. The book explores vital techniques in virus isolation, diagnostic approaches via the detection of viral nucleic acids or proteins, serology, disease-targeted animal species models, and next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics. Written for the invaluable Springer Protocols Handbooks series, chapters contain readily reproducible laboratory protocols as well as expert tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Thorough and hands-on, Animal Coronaviruses, Second Edition will help readers design and carry out their increasingly important projects in clinical research, diagnostics, disease surveillance, and epidemiological study involving this family of viruses.

The localized attachment of circulating leukocytes to endothelium has been recognized as the cellular hallmark of the inflammatory response. This adhesive interaction, a necessary antecedent to the emigration of leukocytes from the blood into the tissues, is mediated by vascular adhesion molecules. Leukocyte Recruitment, Endothelial Cell Adhesion Molecules and Transcriptional Control: Insights for Drug Discovery outlines some of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of inflammation with contributions from top researchers. This volume provides an overview of three of these endothelial adhesion molecules, as examples of key mediators of leukocyte recruitment. It reviews the structure and regulation of these cell surface proteins and focus on the rapidly expanding field of transcriptional regulation of these inducible proteins, and closes with a discussion of drug discovery possibilities that target the regulation of leukocyte recruitment. This book will be of interest for any researchers, in academia or industry, looking for an overview of leukocyte recruitment or novel approaches to drug discovery.

Pocket Guide to Gene Level Diagnostics in Clinical Practice is an abbreviated, pocket-size, quick-reference guide that provides a point-by-point synopsis of the vast wealth of information contained in CRC Handbook of Gene Level Diagnostics in Clinical Practice. All sections and subsections in the Pocket Guide are cross-referenced to corresponding pages in the Handbook. The book works well on its own as a quick reference, but also can be used in conjunction with the larger Handbook for detailed coverage and references to specific information. Pocket Guide to Gene Level Diagnostics in Clinical Practice also includes extensive supplements featuring material not included in the Handbook. These are intended to provide an up-dated, practical source of information useful to anyone involved in molecular diagnostic research and/or service. Supplements are cross-referenced to the main text of the Pocket Guide, that complement and enhance the material covered. Pocket Guide to Gene Level Diagnostics in Clinical Practice will be a handy reference for professionals and students in pathology, biotechnology, biology, and medicine.

This volume addresses the particular problems associated with several classes of biotechnology products, and at the same time demonstrates that the principles are the same as in the development of small new chemical entities. The first chapter addresses FDA regulatory expectations for biotech products. The next several chapters discuss general issues common to each class of biotech drug such as proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids. The balance of the chapters deal with specific biotech drugs that have successfully made it into clinical trials. The reviews are written by renowned experts in their fields.

Purpose of In vivo Models of Inflammation is to provide the biomedical researcher in both the pharmaceutical industry and academia with a description of the state of the art animal model systems used to emulate diseases with components of inflammation. The aim of this second edition is to act as a complement to the first by describing and updating the standard models that are most utilized for specific disease areas. In addition, this 2nd edition includes new models exploring emerging areas of inflammation research.

It provides detailed descriptions of the methodologies and uses of the most significant models. This includes current information regarding agents that demonstrate efficacy, those that do not and those that can be used as standard controls. The focus remains on those models that serve as pre-clinical correlates to human disease as well as those that represent components of the inflammatory response.

New approaches to the development of future models in selected therapeutic areas have been highlighted. The focus on novel technologies that are vital for innovative in vivo research has also been expanded to include chapters on the use of transgenic and gene transfer technologies, nanotechnology, and stem cells.

The book provides the scientist with an up-to-date reference manual for selecting the best animal model for their specific question. Chapters describing current regulations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Japan are also included.