Publisher notice:
This unique and user-friendly resource for clinicians will provide sufficient background to enable physicians to understand how molecular biology is now impacting pulmonary medicine, and to understand the coming advances in pulmonary medicine that will require familiarity with molecular biology concepts. Each chapter begins with a list of basic concepts to be discussed and ends with a limited number of selected annotated references. In addition, each chapter uses a specific pulmonary disease to illustrate how molecular biology impacts the practice of pulmonary medicine.
Features
Each chapter illustrates molecular biologic methods or concepts by showing how this method has provided new information about a pulmonary disease. Each chapter begins with a list of basic concepts to be discussed and ends with a selection of annotated references. The first chapter, Basics, covers the basic concepts of what DNA is, how it is organized to govern the making of proteins, and their application to pulmonary medicine. The chapter on Tuberculosis explains how the polymerase chain reaction relates to the diagnosis of the disease. Plus, discussions of virulence and drug resistance illustrate the clinical relevance of cloning DNA and screening libraries. Amyotrophias Lateral Sclerosis includes coverage of the structure of chromosomes, how to find a gene by linkage analysis, site-directed mutagenesis, and programmed cell death or apoptosis. Cystic Fibrosis discusses deduction of protein structure from gene sequence, posttranscriptional processing of RNA, and posttranslational processing of proteins. Cystic Fibrosis also illustrates the clinical relevance of genetic screening, commercial production of recombinant proteins, and gene therapy. Lung Cancer and the Cell Cycle explores DNA replication and its regulation, oncogenes and anti-oncogenes, and DNA mutations. The appendix contains a glossary of terms with simple definitions.