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The 2002 Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute School on Quantum Gravity was held at the Centro de Estudios Cientificos (CECS),Valdivia, Chile, January 4-14, 2002. The school featured lectures by ten speakers, and was attended by nearly 70 students from over 14 countries. A primary goal was to foster interaction and communication between participants from different cultures, both in the layman’s sense of the term and in terms of approaches to quantum gravity. We hope that the links formed by students and the school will persist throughout their professional lives, continuing to promote interaction and the essential exchange of ideas that drives research forward. This volume contains improved and updated versions of the lectures given at the School. It has been prepared both as a reminder for the participants, and so that these pedagogical introductions can be made available to others who were unable to attend. We expect them to serve students of all ages well.
This book is based on a series of lectures for a course on ionic channels held in Santiago, Chile, on November 17-20, 1984. It is intended as a tutorial guide on the properties, function, modulation, and reconstitution of ionic channels, and it should be accessible to graduate students taking their first steps in this field. In the presentation there has been a deliberate emphasis on the spe cific methodologies used toward the understanding of the workings and function of channels. Thus, in the first section, we learn to "read" single channel records: how to interpret them in the theoretical frame of kinetic models, which information can be extracted from gating currents in re lation to the ...
Ion channels allow us to see nature in all its magnificence, to hear a Bach suite, to smell the aroma of grandmother's cooking, and, in this regard, they put us in contact with the external world. These ion channels are protein molecules located in the cell membrane. In complex organisms, cells need to communicate in order to know about their metabolic status and to act in a coordinate manner. The latter is also accomplished by a class of ion channels able to pierce the lipid bilayer membranes of two adjacent cells. These intercellular channels are the functional subunits of gap junctions. Accordingly, the book is divided in two parts: the first part is dedicated to ion channels that look to...
Transient Receptor Potential Channels offers a unique blend of thoughtfully selected topics ranging from the structural biology of this fascinating group of ion channels to their emerging roles in human diseases. This single book covers TRP channels of yeasts, flies, fishes frogs and humans. And from the biophysics of primary thermo-sensory events in cells to the thermosensation at whole organism level, from physiology of pain to the development of pain-killers, from psychiatric illnesses to cancers, from skin cells to sperms, from taste buds to testes, from established facts to heated debates, this book contains something for every TRP enthusiasts, beginner and expert alike. It includes crucial background information, critical analysis of cutting edge research, and ideas and thoughts for numerous testable hypotheses. It also shows directions for future research in this highly dynamic field. It is a book readers will be just as eager to give to others as keep for themselves.
The majesty of the icefields is beyond description. He who has been fortunate to be there once, remains bound forever. To a theoretical physicist working on black holes the icefields produce a familiar vertigo, the instinctive certainty of being confronted with something so simple and beautifully extreme that it must be of importance. The meeting whose proceedings are contained in this volume was conducted onboard of a vessel that went to the icefields, and the participants could literally set foot on them. It was expected that, for those who had not been there before, this would constitute a ritual of initiation. And so it did. For this reason we like to refer to the meeting as an expeditio...
Each issue lists papers published during the preceding year.
It is now over 30 years since the idea of ion-conducting pores burst on the elec trophysiological scene, 15 years since these were generalIy realized to be mem brane-spanning proteins, and 10 years since the first observations of single ion channels from higher organisms were made. During the past 5 years, several integral membrane channel proteins have been purified in a functionalIy competent state: the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, the Na + channel, mitochondrial "VDAC," and a variety of porins. The stage is thus set to attack ion channels in the same ways that biochemists have been attacking enzymes for decades: isolation folIowed by functional analysis in as simple a system as possi...
Current Topics in Membranes
This book contains papers which discuss many different stimulus--response systems ranging from those in bacteria and paramecia to those in insects and mammals. Emphasis is placed on the identification and characterization of receptor molecules, physical properties of channel molecules, physical and chemical changes in receptors, channels and other structures after stimuli, and the molecular events in the sequential response, excitation, adaptation and learning phases. Use is made throughout of both traditional and new techniques in electrophysiology, biochemistry, genetics and ultrastructural analysis. By covering a wide range of stimulus--response systems the book invites comparison between systems and generates discussion about common principles underlying information reception, transduction and response.
This handbook provides a thorough account of recent directions in membrane channel research. Each subject is covered in terms of channel biophysics, pharmacology, and molecular biology. The introductory chapter reviews methodologies of molecular biology currently used for studying molecular structure and function of membrane channels and specific domains in channel proteins.