Thirty years have elapsed since the first description by S. A. BERSON and R. S. Y ALOW of the basic principles of radioimmunoassay (RIA). During this period of time, RIA methodology has been instrumental to the growth of many areas of biomedical research, including endocrinology, oncology, hematology, and pharmacology. It has done so by providing a relatively simple universal tool allowing, for the first time, the detection of endogenous mediators that are present 12 10 in body fluids at concentrations as low as 10- _10- M. The fundamental nature of this discovery and the wide-ranging...

"Immunopharmacology," why not "pharmacoimmunology"? Professor H. O. Schild University College London, 1962 An intact immune response is essential for survival, as is evidenced by the various innate immune deficiency syndromes and by the emergence of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) as a pandemic during the last decade. Substances which stimulate the immune response might contribute to the therapy of AIDS and its precursor, AIDS-related syndrome, as well as of other clinical conditions in which immune responses can be diminished, such as carcinoma and infections. In other...

One of the most impressive works of scholarship in the field of experimental pharmacology has been the Heffter-Heubner Handbuch der experimentellen Pharmakologie, internationalized some years ago under the title Handbook 0/ Experimental Pharmacology and kept up to date by a series of numbered Ergiin- zungswerke or supplementary volumes which have now replaced in importance the original Handbuch. These volumes constitute a valuable and continuously up- dated multi author review series of topics important in modern pharmacology and allied sciences. The Editorial Board of the Handbook invited me...

The development of a new antiarrhythmic drug involves many people with disparate skills. The organic chemist who makes it is guided not only by the structure-action relations of previous compounds, but by anticipation of a requirement for a particular type of action. In fact several of the best-known antiarrhythmics, including lidocaine, mexiletine, amiodarone and verapamil, were originally synthesized for other purposes. Physicians have to determine whether the new drug works, and pharma- cologists how it works. For some years I have believed that there was room for a work which could be...

This volume provides a comprehensive reference on drugs employed to treat Parkinson's disease. Since pharmacology is dependent upon physiology, and physiology upon anatomy, the multiauthored contents build up from all these disciplines to applied therapeutics. Our knowledge of synaptic mechanisms in the striatum is reviewed; and drugs are considered as therapeutic tools to manipulate synaptic function. Methods of evaluating treatment in Parkinson's disease are discussed in order to provide a background against which the reader can determine whether therapeutic studies are meaningful. The...

Most often when the subject of antimicrobial resistance is discussed, the organizational emphasis is on individual antimicrobial agents or groups of agents. Thus we tend to see discussion of resistance to f3-lactams, tetracyclines, amino- glycosides etc. In this book many of the authors were asked to emphasize the mechanism of resistance in their discussion and from that to show how susceptibility to various agents was affected. In part this was done to help emphasize the enormous contribution that the study of antimicrobial resistance has made to our understanding of fundamental physiologic...

It is fourteen years since insulin was last reviewed in The Handbook of Ex- perimental Pharmacology, in volume 32. The present endeavor is more modest in scope. Volume 32 appeared in two separate parts, each having its own subeditors, and together the two parts covered nearly all areas of insulin pharmacology. Such comprehensiveness seemed impractical in a new volume. The amount of in- formation related to insulin that is now available simply would not fit in a reasonable amount of space. Furthermore, for better or worse, scientists have be- come so specialized that a volume providing such...

This volume forms part of a prestigious series and covers the latest advances in our understanding of the pathophysiology and treatment of asthma. Our understanding of asthma has changed dramatically in recent years, and much of this new information is brought together in this volume written by inter- nationally recognised authorities. The aim of the book is to review in depth the changing concepts of inflammatory processes in asthma and to discuss the implications for research of this common chronic disease. Many of the advances in and future therapy our understanding of asthma have...

Since the discovery of the pancreatic secretagogue secretin by W. M. BAYLISS and E. H. STARLING at the inception of the twentieth century, intense interest has focused on numerous, continually expanding classes of small peptides which appear to serve as regulatory molecules in the gastrointestinal tract, brain, and other organ systems. Initially, many of these substances were, like secretin, discovered in functional assays as "factors" or "activities" extractable in minute quantities from tissues or tissue fluids. By the middle of the century, advances in biochemical and immunological methods...

Why have another book in the bone-calcium field? When the idea was first raised that this important area of biomedical research should be given more attention in the review literature, we felt that comprehensive texts recently published and in press were directed at more general audiences and did not address in detail some of the important areas of current investigation. As this field has grown and matured, information has accumulated at such a rapid rate that it has become impossible to keep abreast of all areas by reading the original articles in the scientific literature. Accordingly, we...