And he takes us into the laboratories of today's molecular chemists and neuroscientists who are creating drugs that will change our brains in ways that only a few years ago seemed the stuff of science fiction.

Many advances have been made in the last decade in the understanding of the computational principles underlying olfactory system functioning. Neuromorphic Olfaction is a collaboration among European researchers who, through NEUROCHEM (Fp7-Grant Agreement Number 216916)-a challenging and innovative European-funded project-introduce novel computing p

Nuclear receptors are ligand activated transcription factors that control numerous biological functions. Consequently, altering activity of these receptors is proposed, and indeed documented, to affect many physiological and pathological conditions in experimental animals and humans. Thus, nuclear receptors have become a major target in the effort to treat numerous diseases. This book will shed light on and emphasize intricate processes involved in designing as well as discovering physiological and pharmacological modulators of these important proteins. World-renowned scientists will share with the reader their professional expertise and extensive experience acquired through decades working with nuclear receptors. Chapters address the various means and consequences of modulating nuclear receptor activity will be presented and discussed. These modulators cover a wide span of moieties ranging from synthetic chemicals to natural products. In addition, the classification of these chemicals ranges from pan agonists to selective agonists and inverse agonists to antagonists. They also include proteolytic means to obliterate the receptor in the event that modulating its activity through canonical pharmacological agents becomes less effective and/or less desirable due to anticipated or experienced toxicities. Modulation of receptor activity may also take place in the absence of a ligand or through manipulating the structure of the receptor itself by controlling posttranslational events.

Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking, and Signaling bridges the gap between chemical engineering and cell biology by lucidly and practically demonstrating how a mathematical modeling approach combined with quantitative experiments can provide enhanced understanding of cell phenomena involving receptor/ligand interactions. In stressing the need for a quantitative understanding of how receptor-mediated cell functions depend on receptor and ligand properties, the book offers comprehensive treatments of both basic and state-of-the-art model frameworks that span the entire spectrum of receptor processes--from fundamental cell surface binding, intracellular trafficking, and signal transduction events to the cell behavioral functions they govern, including proliferation, adhesion, and migration. The book emphasizes mechanistic models that are accessible to experimental testing and includes detailed examples of important contemporary issues. This much-needed book introduces chemical engineers and bioengineers to important problems in receptor biology and familiarizes cell biologists with the insights that can be gained from engineering analysis and synthesis. As such, chemical engineers, researchers, and advanced students in the fields of biotechnology, biomedical sciences, bioengineering, and molecular cell biology will find this book to be conceptually rich, timely, and useful.

Cell Surface Receptors: A Short Course on Theory and Methods, Second Edition is a primer for the study of cell surface receptors. The simplified discussion of methods and their underlying principles removes the usual intimidation caused by the specialized vocabulary or sophisticated mathematics that characterize many of the primary papers in this field. In this way, the basic concepts become emphasized. This volume is a starting point: a textbook as well as a manual to which the investigator can return for a refresher course, when needed.

A comprehensive, state-of-the-art review of our current understanding of the molecular and structural biology of 5-HT receptors and their potential use for drug discovery. The authors describe the anatomical, cellular, and subcellular distribution of 5-HT receptors and demonstrate a powerful approach to elucidating their physiological role using knockout mice in which the 5-HT receptors were deleted. They also review our understanding of the physiological role(s) of 5-HT receptors based mainly on studies performed in genetically engineered mice. Highlights include discussions of the behavioral phenotypes of 5-HT receptor knockout animals, the molecular biology and pharmacology of 5-HT receptors, and insights into the complexity of 5-HT receptor signal transduction.

The T Cell Receptor FactsBook contains entries on all the 176 functional variable, diversity, joining, and constant regions of the human T cell receptor, including alpha, beta, gamma, and delta loci. Introductory chapters summarize information of T cell receptor chain synthesis, chromosomal location, and an overview of the human T cell receptor loci.