The kingdom Fungi constitutes an independent group equal in rank to that of plants and animals. It is a diverse clade of heterotrophic eukaryotic organisms that shares some ch- acteristics with animals and includes mushrooms, molds, yeasts as well as many other types of less well known organisms. Approximately 100,000 species have been described, which comprise less than 10% of the estimated number of fungal species in nature. Fungi can be found in every place wherever adequate moisture, temperature, and organic substrates are available; however, they also occupy extreme habitats, from hot...

The discovery of DNA as the genetic material brought great hope to scientists all over the world. It was believed that many of the lingering questions in genetics and the mechanisms of heredity would fnally be answered. However, as often is the case in science, more qu- tions arose out of this discovery. What defnes a gene? What are the mechanisms of gene regulation? Further discovery and technological innovations brought about sequencing techniques that allowed the study of complete genomes from many organisms, including Arabidopsis and humans. Despite all the excitement surrounding these...

The postgenomic era presents a multitude of challenges for scientists in all areas of science. The information overload from new discoveries in genomics and proteomics highlight how little we really know about the functioning of a cell. The advent of Next-Generation Sequencing technologies promises to make our genetic blueprint available to the common man. The availability of the plethora of biological information has lead to the devel- ment of new areas of science and the coining of new "omics" terms including transcr- tomics, methylomics, toxicogenomics, pharmacogenomics, metabolomics,...

Recent advances in organic chemistry, fluorescent microscopy, and materials science have created an entirely new range of techniques and probes for imaging DNA damage in molecular and cellular biology. In DNA Damage Detection In Situ, Ex Vivo, and In Vivo: Methods and Protocols, expert researchers explore the latest advances in the area, covering both recent and established techniques to detect and quantify DNA damage at scales ranging from subcellular to the level of a whole live organism. Chapters present all major assays used in molecular and cellular biology for the labeling of DNA damage...