Nearly thirty years ago, in 1974, the volume on Angiotensin edited by Irvine H.Page and F. Merlin Bumpus expanded the Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology. Even after two decades the multiplicity of its actions appears not to have been fully discovered. To call attention to its many functions is one of the purposes of this book. This new edition of the volume on Angiotensin attempts to provide an updated account of the knowledge and findings accumulated since the complexity of angiotensin was so accurately recognized.

Realizing the need of interaction between universities and research groups in industry, the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry (ECMI) was founded in 1986 by mathematicians from ten European universities. Since then it has been continuously extending and now it involves about all Euro- pean countries. The aims of ECMI are - To promote the use of mathematical models in industry. - To educate industrial mathematicians to meet the growing demand for such experts. - To operate on a European Scale. Mathematics, as the language of the sciences, has always played an im- portant role in...

This book is being published as we mark the end of the first 50 years of the modern antidepressant era. This era began with the chance discovery that tri- clic antidepressants and monoamine oxidase inhibitors had antidepressant p- perties. That discovery had three consequences. First, it brought simple and effective treatment to patients suffering from major depressive illnesses. Second, these discoveries, together with the discovery of lithium and chlorpromazine, began the remedicalization of psychiatry by making it clear that the treatment of many of the major psychiatric illnesses can be...

More than 70 years have elapsed since U. S. von Euler and I. H. Gaddum dis covered an unidentified depressor substance in the brain and gut. The effects of the powdery extracts were marked as 'P' on the kymograph tracings, and the nondescript name of 'substance P' still carries the breath of this adventurous period. In the 1960s, substance P returned in another disguise, staging as a hypothalamic peptide that causes copious salivary secretion (see chapter by F. Lembeck and I. Donnerer). This time, though, the mysterious substance was tracked down by S. E. Leeman and her collaborators as an...

Antibody therapeutics are the treatment of choice for several autoimmune and oncological conditions and are becoming the molecules of choice for further combination therapies and cell engineering. Current developments and clinical successes are summarised by experts in the drug development field. A must read for immunologists, clinical scientists and novel drug developers.

Some important constraints of anesthesia must be taken into consideration when the pharmacological properties of modern anesthetics are discussed. The most imp- tant of these could be that the target effect be achieved preferably within seconds, at most within a few minutes. Similarly, offset of drug action should be achieved within minutes rather hours. The target effects, such as unconsciousness, are pot- tially life-threatening, as are the side effects of modern anesthetics, such as respi- tory and cardiovascular depression. Finally, the patient's purposeful responses are not available to...

Signi?cant advances in stem cell research and their potentials for therap- tic applications have attracted the attention of the scienti?c community and captured the imagination of society as a whole. Not so long ago, the study of most stem cells, other than those that regenerated the haematopoietic system, was rather obscure and limited to a relatively small number of researchers and laboratories. The uproar over stem cells really began in 1998 with the s- cessful derivation of pluripotent human embryonic stem (ES) cells by James Thomson and co-workers. This breakthrough and the subsequent...

Over the last two decades, Eastern psychology has provided fertile ground for therapists, as a cornerstone, a component, or an adjunct of their work. In particular, research studies are identifying the Buddhist practice of mindfulness--a non-judgmental self-observation that promotes personal awareness--as a basis for effective interventions for a variety of disorders.

The Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness is a clearly written, theory-to-practice guide to this powerful therapeutic approach (and related concepts in meditation, acceptance, and compassion) and its...

Recombination lines at radio wavelengths have been - and still are - a p- erful tool for modern astronomy. For more than 30years, they have allowed astronomers to probe the gases from which stars form. They have even been detected in the Sun. In addition, observations of these spectral lines facilitate basic research into the atom, in forms and environments that can only exist in the huge dimensions and extreme conditions of cosmic laboratories. We intend this book to serve as a tourist's guide to the world of Radio Recombination Lines. It contains three divisions: a history of their...

In the past decade, major progress has been made in understanding mec- nisms of arrhythmias. This progress stems from much-improved experim- tal, genetic, and computational techniques that have helped to clarify the roles of speci?c proteins in the cardiac cycle, including ion channels, pumps, - changer, adaptor proteins, cell-surface receptors, and contractile proteins. The interactions of these components, and their individual potential as therap- tic targets, have also been studied in detail, via an array of new imaging and sophisticated experimental modalities. The past 10 years have also...