Chemical Biology

摘要

In the last few years, chemical biology has become established as a discipline in its own right at the interface of molecular biology and chemistry. It is concerned with the investigation of biological systems by chemical modifications and manipulations. The book Chemical Biology-Learning through Case Studies is a compendium that aims to open the broad and interdisciplinary field of chemical biology for advanced students. Comprising biochemical, as well as pharmaceutical and synthetic approaches, it is the theoretically based complement to the practice-oriented book Chemical Biology-A Practical Course by the same editors, Herbert Waldmann and Petra Janning, published in 2004. The approach taken by the editors is straightforward and easy to comprehend, since the methods and techniques are introduced by examples from actual research projects. Experts were invited to describe their field of research in individual chapters, each one based on a single study, in order to cover the immense subject without overloading the book. This approach should also inspire scientific thinking.