Tropical diseases remain a major global concern, not only because they affect a huge part of the world population, but also because of the growing global movement of people associated with employment, tourism, and war. Recent advances in molecular biology, epitomized by the genomic revolution, have brought new promises of powerful scientific approaches to fight such diseases. The WHO's Advisory Committee on Health Research recognizes this fact in its recommendation on Genomics and World Health and stresses the need for concerted efforts by scientists in the developed world, where most of the recent advances in life sciences have occurred, and those in the tropical, mostly less developed countries, where such diseases are endemic. Tropical Diseases: From Molecule to Bedside exemplifies such an effort. It covers a wide range of topics that reflect perspectives of northern and southern hemispheres. Fittingly, it defines tropical diseases in a broader-than-usual manner. For example, the book discusses traditional tropical medicine topics of infectious diseases and nutritional deficiencies. These diseases are common in the tropics, although some are associated more with poverty than with tropical living conditions. It also deals with genetic diseases and genomic issues that are truly associated with living in the tropics, e.g. the thalassemias. The book begins with several papers describing the vast human genetic diversity of Southeast Asia and its relationship to several genetic disorders. These papers illustrate the future direction of genomic activities in relation to disease susceptibility and resistance. The next sections deal with malaria and four specific viral and bacterial diseasesof the tropics: hepatitis B and C, tuberculosis, and leprosy. These are then followed by a section on general bacterial infection. Two papers on nutrition complete the volume.
Proceedings of the second International Eijkman Symposium on Tropical Diseases: From Molecule to Bedside: In the Footsteps of Christiaan Eijkman, held September 2-6, 2001, in Bogor, Indonesia.

Christiaan Eijkman received the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1929 for his discovery that beri-beri is a vitamin-deficiency disease. He had conducted his seminal research on the disease in the fonner Dutch East Indies between 1886 and 1898 at the location of. the present Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta. In 1998, the first International Eijkman Symposium was held in The Hague, The Netherlands, to celebrate the fact that exactly 100 years earlier Christiaan Eijkman was inaugurated as full professor in Hygiene and Bacteriology at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The Eijkman-Winkler Centre for Microbiology, Infectious Diseases and Inflammation is the direct descendant of Eijkman's department in Utrecht. vii Contributing Authors Bacbti Alisjabbana Department of Internal Medicine Padjadjaran University (UNP AD) Dr Hasan Sadikin General Hospital Bandung Indonesia Kevin Baird US Navy Medical Research Unit-2 J1. Percetakan Negara 29 Jakarta 15650 Indonesia Phone: +62-21-421-4457 Fax: +62-214244507 Jan P . B. van den Berg Nederland-Batam Foundation Stationsweg 56 6711 PT Ede The Netherlands Phone: +31-318610368 Fax: +31-318612476 Greet J. Boland Eijkman-Winkler Centre University Medical Centre Utrecht ix x Contributing Authors P. O. Box 85500 3584 CX Utrecht The Netherlands Phone: +31-302506536 Fax: +31-302541770 G J . Boland@azu. n1 Graham V. Brown Department of Medicine University of Melbourne Royal Melbourne Hospital Victoria Australia gvb@unimelb. edu. au Frank E. J. Coenjaerts Eijkman-Winkler Centre University Medical Centre Utrecht P. O. Box 85500 3584 CX Utrecht The Netherlands Phone: +31-302507637 Fax: +31-302541770 . EJ . Coenjaerts@lab. azu.

In recent years, the ATP synthase (H+.ATPase, FoFrATPase) has been the subject of intensive IDvestigations in many laboratories. The major reason for this lies in the fact that this enzyme complex catalyses one of the most important reactions in living cells, namely the synthesis of ATP utilizing the energy from an electrochemical transmembrane H+ gradient, generated by the cellular respiratory chain or by the light reactions of photosynthetic organisms. The mechanism by which the H+ motive force is utilized to drive the synthesis of ATP is one of the major unsolved problems in biochemistry. Thus, the fundamental information concerning the-molecular structure and the mechanism of assembly of the ATP synthase is of major significance in cell biology. A seminar/workshop on the Molecular Structure, Function and Assembly of the ATP synthases was held in April, 1987 at the East.West Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, to promote exchange of information between laboratories actively engaged in the study of the A TP synthases, and to provide a forum for discussion and coordination of data derived from molecular, genetic and biochemical approaches used in different laboratories. This volume summarizes the result of the seminar/workshop, in the form of a collection of papers presented at the meeting, and provides an overvIew of current work in this rapidly progressing area of research."

Immediately following Pearl Harbor, Japan wrenched the meagerly defended Netherlands East Indies, now known as Indonesia, from the hands of its Dutch colonialists. Suddenly, one of the world's largest nations was at the service of the Japanese Imperial Army. A highly successful campaign recruited young Indonesian men to support the Japanese war efforts, but hidden behind the facade of Asian brotherhood was a sinister truth-during the brief 40 months of Japanese occupation, as many as several million Indonesians were worked to death or summarily killed as expendable slave laborers known as the romusha. While many romusha were lost from all memory and record, nine hundred Indonesians were known victims of a brutal and immoral medical experiment perpetuated by an increasingly desperate Imperial Japan. With the tide of the war turning and in dire need of a means to protect their troops from tetanus in anticipation of a land assault, the Japanese used romusha as human guinea pigs for a vaccine that had not been sufficiently vetted. In a matter of days, all 900 patients had suffered protracted and agonizing deaths. With the American and Allied forces poised to win the war, Japan needed a scapegoat for this well-documented incident if it was to avoid war crimes prosecution. In War Cimes in Japan-Occupied Indonesia: A Case of Murder by Medicine, J. Kevin Baird and Sangkot Marzuki chronicle the life and wrongful execution of Achmad Mochtar, a native Indonesian and renowned scientist, against the backdrop of a tropical medicine and the science of vaccination, not only to exonerate an innocent man, but also to provide a picture of a nascent country emerging from the ravages of colonization and occupation.