This is the third book chronicling the scientific activities of the European Society for Photobiology (ESP). It contains 56 chapters, written by authors from 16 countries, based on presentations at the 3rd Congress of the European Society for Photobiology held in Budapest, Hungary on the 27th August - 2nd September 1989. The science of photobiology, which can simply be defined as the study of the effects of light on living matter, covers so many subject areas that no single book can hope to do justice to them all. This multidisciplinary nature of photobiology is reflected by the material covered in this volume, which contains chapters on such diverse themes as motile photoresponses in bacteria, cancer therapy and photosynthesis. Interestingly, the emphasis placed on various subject areas differs quite markedly from the preceding volume ('Light in Biology & Medicine, volume 1, eds. R. Douglas, J. Moan & F. Dall'Acqua, Plenum Press, 1988). It is hoped that by highlighting different areas of photobiology these and future pUblications emanating from the ESP will, in time, produce a comprehensive record of photobiological research, . not only in Europe but throughout the world. Unlike many conference proceedings all the chapters con tained within this book have been subjected to rigorous peer review and several potential contributions were rejected during the editing process. Furthermore, most manuscripts underwent extensive editing to try and produce chapters of a uniform format and standard."

The fIrst edition of the Science 0/ Photobiology edited by Kendric C. Smith (plenum Press, 1977) was a comprehensive textbook of photobiology, devoting a chapter to each of the subdisciplines of the fIeld. At the end of many of these chapters there were brief descriptions of simple experiments that students could perform to demonstrate the principles discussed. In the succeeding years some photobiologists felt that a more complete publica tion of experiments in photobiology would be a useful teaching tool. Thus, in the 1980s the American Society for Photobiology (ASP) attempted to produce a laboratory manual in photobiology. Cognizant of these efforts, Kendric Smith elected to publish the second edition of The Science o/Photobiology (1989) without experiments; anticipating the comple tion of the ASP laboratory manual. Unfortunately, the initial ASP efforts met with limited success, and several years were to pass before a photobiology laboratory manual became a reality. One of the major stumbling blocks to production of an accurate and reliable laboratory manual was the requirement that the experiments be tested, not just by the author who is familiar with the techniques, but by students who may be quite new to photobiology. How could this be accomplished with limited resources? Many ideas were considered and discarded, before a workable solution was found. The catalyst that enabled the careful screening of all experiments in this book was a NATO Advanced Study Institute (ASI) devoted entirely to this purpose."