Over the past 50 years a wide variety of antibacterial substances have been discovered and synthesised, and their use in treating bacterial infection has been spectacularly successful. Today there are several general classes of antibacterial drugs, each having a well established set of uses, and together they form the mainstay of modern antibacterial chemotherapy. In search for new and improved agents, the pharmaceutical researcher needs to be well informed on many topics, including existing agents, their modes of action and pharmacology, and possible synthetic approaches. In this new book the author has brought together a wide range of information on the principal classes of antibacterial agents, and he covers, for each group, their history, mode of action, key structural features, synthesis and bacterial resistance. The result is a compact and concise overview of these very important classes of antibacterial agents.

Volume 5 of "Advances in Medicinal Chemistry" contains four intriguing and detailed accounts of the close interface between synthetic chemistry, structure-activity relationships, biochemistry, and pharmacology. In Chapter 1, there is a comprehensive survey of the immunophilin area specifically focussing on neuroregenerative applications in the central nervous system. In Chapter 2, there is an overview of the development of a potent analgesic compound that works via modulation of neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. In Chapter 3, there is a description of dopamine D-2 autoreceptor partial agonists as potential therapy for the treatment of schizophrenia. In Chapter 4, there is a summary of the successful program in which potent non-peptide inhibitors of HIV protease from the AIDS virus were developed.

Over the past 50 years a wide variety of antibacterial substances have been discovered and synthesised, and their use in treating bacterial infection has been spectacularly successful. Today there are several general classes of antibacterial drugs, each having a well established set of uses, and together they form the mainstay of modern antibacterial chemotherapy. In search for new and improved agents, the pharmaceutical researcher needs to be well informed on many topics, including existing agents, their modes of action and pharmacology, and possible synthetic approaches. In this new book the author has brought together a wide range of information on the principal classes of antibacterial agents, and he covers, for each group, their history, mode of action, key structural features, synthesis and bacterial resistance. The result is a compact and concise overview of these very important classes of antibacterial agents.