This book provides a comprehensive coverage of the basic principles of structural biology, as well as an up-to-date summary of some main directions of research in the field. The relationship between structure and function is described in detail for soluble proteins, membrane proteins, membranes, and nucleic acids.
There are several books covering protein structure and function, but none that give a complete picture, including nucleic acids, lipids, membranes and carbohydrates, all being of central importance in structural biology.
The book covers state-of-the-art research in various areas. It is unique for its breadth of coverage by experts in the fields. The book is richly illustrated with more than 400 color figures to highlight the wide range of structures.
Anders Liljas is emeritus professor of Molecular Biophysics at Lund University. He obtained his PhD from Uppsala University and spent a postdoctoral period at Purdue University. After returning to Uppsala he became professor at Lund University in 1988. He retired in 2004. His main interests are structural biology in general and enzymes and ribosomes in particular. He is a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
Lars Liljas obtained his PhD from Uppsala University. He has spent postdoctoral and sabbatical periods at Purdue University and Scripps Institute, la Jolla. Since 2000, he is Professor of Molecular Biology at the same university and since 2012 emeritus professor. His main interest is viruses, especially the assembly of virus particles.
Miriam-Rose Ash obtained her PhD from the University of Sydney, focusing on the structural biology of metal homeostasis proteins. in 2012, she moved to Aarhus University to conduct postdoctoral research into the structures of membrane transporters. Her main interests lie in teaching, science communication, and student development.
Göran Lindblom obtained his PhD from Lund Institute of Technology and he is emeritus professor of Physical Chemistry at Umeå University. He has been a research professor at The University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, and an F C Donder professor at University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. His main research interests is the function of lipids in cell membranes, consequences and understanding of the regulation of the lipid composition. Many studies, often with solid state NMR spectroscopy, concern lipid lateral diffusion, lateral domain formation, and liquid crystalline phase structures that lipids form. He is a Fellow of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
Poul Nissen obtained his PhD from Aarhus University followed by post-doctoral research at Yale University. He set up his independent research having returned to Aarhus and since 2006, he has been a professor of protein biochemistry. His main research interests are transmembrane transport proteins, ribosomes, drug discovery and interdisciplinary approaches in cell biology.
Morten Kjeldgaard is an associate professor at the Department of Molecular Biology, Aarhus University. From a background in chemistry and physics, he developed a profound interest for macromolecular crystallography and structural biology, with a special interest in protein synthesis. He spent two years as a post-doc at Yale University, involved in small-angle scattering studies on the 30S subunit. His scientific interests include crystallography, protein factors involved in protein synthesis, molecular graphics, and nucleic acid structure. He obtained his lic. scient. degree in 1990.
