The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the importance of stoichiometry in the biomedical field. It proposes a collection of selected research articles and reviews which provide up-to-date information related to stoichiometry at various levels. The first section deals with host-guest chemistry, focusing on selected calixarenes, cyclodextrins and crown ethers derivatives. In the second and third sections the book presents some issues concerning stoichiometry of metal complexes and lipids and polymers architecture. The fourth section aims to clarify the role of stoichiometry in the determination of protein interactions, while in the fifth section some selected experimental techniques applied to specific systems are introduced. The last section of the book is an attempt at showing some interesting connections between biomedicine and the environment, introducing the concept of biological stoichiometry. On this basis, the present volume would definitely be an ideal source of scientific information to researchers and scientists involved in biomedicine, biochemistry and other areas involving stoichiometry evaluation.

The aim of this book is to provide an overview on the importance of stoichiometry in the materials science field. It presents a collection of selected research articles and reviews providing up-to-date information related to stoichiometry at various levels. Being materials science an interdisciplinary area, the book has been divided in multiple sections, each for a specific field of applications. The first two sections introduce the role of stoichiometry in nanotechnology and defect chemistry, providing examples of state-of-the-art technologies. Section three and four are focused on intermetallic compounds and metal oxides. Section five describes the importance of stoichiometry in electrochemical applications. In section six new strategies for solid phase synthesis are reported, while a cross sectional approach to the influence of stoichiometry in energy production is the topic of the last section. Though specifically addressed to readers with a background in physical science, I believe this book will be of interest to researchers working in materials science, engineering and technology.

All life is chemical. That fact underpins the developing field of ecological stoichiometry, the study of the balance of chemical elements in ecological interactions. This long-awaited book brings this field into its own as a unifying force in ecology and evolution. Synthesizing a wide range of knowledge, Robert Sterner and Jim Elser show how an understanding of the biochemical deployment of elements in organisms from microbes to metazoa provides the key to making sense of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. After summarizing the chemistry of elements and their relative abundance in Earth's environment, the authors proceed along a line of increasing complexity and scale from molecules to cells, individuals, populations, communities, and ecosystems. The book examines fundamental chemical constraints on ecological phenomena such as competition, herbivory, symbiosis, energy flow in food webs, and organic matter sequestration. In accessible prose and with clear mathematical models, the authors show how ecological stoichiometry can illuminate diverse fields of study, from metabolism to global change. Set to be a classic in the field, Ecological Stoichiometry is an indispensable resource for researchers, instructors, and students of ecology, evolution, physiology, and biogeochemistry. From the foreword by Peter Vitousek: ? "[T]his book represents a significant milestone in the history of ecology. . . . Love it or argue with it--and I do both--most ecologists will be influenced by the framework developed in this book. . . . There are points to question here, and many more to test . . . And if we are both lucky and good, this questioning and testing will advance our field beyond the level achieved in this book. I can't wait to get on with it."

Ecological stoichiometry concerns the way that the elemental composition of organisms shapes their ecology. It deals with the balance or imbalance of elemental ratios and how that affects organism growth, nutrient cycling, and the interactions with the biotic and abiotic worlds. The elemental composition of organisms is a set of constraints through which all the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles must pass. All organisms consume nutrients and acquire compounds from the environment proportional to their needs. Organismal elemental needs are determined in turn by the energy required to live and grow, the physical and chemical constraints of their environment, and their requirements for relatively large polymeric biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, lipids, and proteins, as well as for structural needs including stems, bones, shells, etc. These materials together constitute most of the biomass of living organisms. Although there may be little variability in elemental ratios of many of these biomolecules, changing the proportions of different biomolecules can have important effects on organismal elemental composition. Consequently, the variation in elemental composition both within and across organisms can be tremendous, which has important implications for Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. It has been over a decade since the publication of Sterner and Elser’s book, Ecological Stoichiometry (2002). In the intervening years, hundreds of papers on stoichiometric topics ranging from evolution and regulation of nutrient content in organisms, to the role of stoichiometry in populations, communities, ecosystems and global biogeochemical dynamics have been published. Here, we present a collection of contributions from the broad scientific community to highlight recent insights in the field of Ecological Stoichiometry.

The purpose of this book is to interpret more sensitively some of the offerings of the standard text book of general chemistry. As a supplement thereto, it covers various aspects of formulation and stoichiometry that are frequently treated far too perfunctorily or, in many instances, are not considered at all. The inadequate attention often accorded by the comprehensive text to many topics within its proper purview arises, understandably enough, from the numerous broad and highly varied objectives set for the first year of the curriculum for modern chemistry in colleges and universities. For the serious student this means, more often than not, the frustrations of questions unanswered. The amplification that this book proffers in the immediate area of its subject covers the equations representing internal redox reactions, not only of the simple but, also, of the multiple disproportionations of which the complexities often discourage an undertaking despite the challenge they offer: distinctions to be observed in the balancing of equations in con trasting alkali-basic and ammonia-basic reaction media; quantitative contributions made by the ionization or dissociation effects of electrolytes to the colligative properties of their solutions; intensive application of the universal reaction principle of chemical equivalence to the stoichiometry of oxidation and reduction.

There is no doubt that nowadays, biology benefits greatly from mathematics. In particular, cellular biology is, besides population dynamics, a field where tech niques of mathematical modeling are widely used. This is reflected by the large number of journal articles and congress proceedings published every year on the dynamics of complex cellular processes. This applies, among others, to metabolic control analysis, where the number of articles on theoretical fundamentals and experimental applications has increased for about 15 years. Surprisingly, mono graphs and textbooks dealing with the modeling of metabolic systems are still exceptionally rare. We think that now time is ripe to fill this gap. This monograph covers various aspects of the mathematical description of enzymatic systems, such as stoichiometric analysis, enzyme kinetics, dynamical simulation, metabolic control analysis, and evolutionary optimization. We believe that, at present, these are the main approaches by which metabolic systems can be analyzed in mathematical terms. Although stoichiometric analysis and enzyme kinetics are classical fields tracing back to the beginning of our century, there are intriguing recent developments such as detection of elementary biochemical syn thesis routes and rate laws for the situation of metabolic channeling, which we have considered worth being included. Evolutionary optimization of metabolic systems is a rather new field with promising prospects. Its goal is to elucidate the structure and functions of these systems from an evolutionary viewpoint.

Stoichiometry deals with the statistical analysis of quantity of reacting agents and finished products in a chemical reaction. The purpose of this text is to provide an insight on the significance of stoichiometry in the biomedical domain. It brings a compilation of chosen research works and evaluations which offer latest updates related to stoichiometry at different stages. In this book, a range of topics like host-guest chemistry, with special emphasis on cyclodextrins and crown ethers derivatives, matters relating to stoichiometry of metal complexes and lipids, importance of stoichiometry in the identification of protein interactions, experimental methods used in certain systems and the interrelation between biomedicine and environment leading to the formulation of the concept of biological stoichiometry have been presented. This text will be of great significance, providing essential scientific data to experts involved in associated fields.