The new edition of this popular, well-established textbook addresses the expanding role of the pharmacist in treating patients. It covers treatment of common diseases as well as other medical, therapeutic and patient related issues. Written by both pharmacists and clinicians to reflect a team approach, it offers an in-depth analysis of drug therapy in the treatment of disease, relying on input from the pharmacist as a member of the "team" in hospital and community settings. Information is easy to locate in a logical format organized primarily by systems and disorders.

Heme oxygenase is rapidly taking its place as the centerpiece of multiple inter acting metabolic systems. Only 25 years ago heme oxygenase and its metabolic prod ucts appeared to be merely a simple metabolic system-one substrate, heme; one enzyme, heme oxygenase; and one set of products, iron to be recycled, and bilirubin and carbon monoxide to be disposed. From a group of about 25 people in 1974, as judged by attendance at various Gordon conferences, heme oxygenase has, in the year 2000, attracted working scientists-and clinicians I might add-by the hundreds and has produced referenced publications by the thousands. It is well-deserved attention. Heme oxygenase system is now similar to the metabolic networks surrounding glucose in those complex maps of glycolytic and non-glycolytic metabolic pathways, which we had to memorize as students. The relevance of heme oxygenase to regulatory biology was recognized many years ago, but the work conducted over the past five years has created a new wave of emphasis focusing on genetic manipulation to alter heme oxygenase gene expression, the regulatory actions of heme oxygenase products including carbon monoxide, and the significance of changes in the heme oxygenase system. The physiological and pathological relevance of heme oxygenase in the brain, heart, liver, bone marrow, organ transplant, lung and kidney, opens many areas of investigation in various dis ciplines. Advances in the pharmacology of bilirubin and its ability as an antioxidant have provided a new avenue in clinical research.

From his birth in a village in Andhra to founding and running Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, now one of India’s largest pharmaceutical enterprises, Dr K. Anji Reddy’s journey makes for an inspiring story. That story is told rivetingly in his own words in his memoir, An Unfinished Agenda. Dr Anji Reddy became an entrepreneur at a time when India was woefully short of technology to manufacture many basic medicines. Then, in barely three decades, the Indian pharmaceutical industry had grown to the point that India not only became self-sufficient in medicine, but also a supplier of affordable generic medicines to the world. Dr Anji Reddy provides a ringside view of this remarkable transformation, with fascinating anecdotes about those who made it happen. The history of modern medicine is a gripping story of triumphs and failures. An Unfinished Agenda takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the science of medicine over the last hundred years and reminds us of the stark challenges that remain.

The second edition of Neuroimmune Pharmacology bridges the disciplines of neuroscience, immunology and pharmacology from the molecular to clinical levels with particular thought made to engage new research directives and clinical modalities. Bringing together the foremost field authorities from around the world, Neuroimmune Pharmacology will serve as an invaluable resource for the basic and applied scientists of the current decade and beyond.

The last decade or so has seen remarkable advances in our knowledge of cough. This applies especially to its basic mechanisms: the types of airway sensors, the phar- cological receptors on their membranes, the brainstem organization of the ‘cough centre’, and the involvement of the cerebral cortex in the sensations and the vol- tary control of cough. With the exception of the last of these, nearly all the studies have been on experimental animals rather than humans, for obvious reasons. One group of experimental studies has particular relevance to human patients, and that is the demonstration of the sensitization of cough pathways both in the periphery and in the brainstem. Similar sensitizations have been shown for patients with chronic cough or who have been exposed to pollutants, and it is reasonable to suppose that this is the basis of their cough and that the underlying mechanisms are generally similar in humans and other species. Important advances are also being made in clinical cough research. For the three main causes of clinical cough, asthma, post-nasal drip syndrome, and gast- oesophageal re?ux disease, we are beginning to understand the pathological processes involved. There remains a diagnostically obdurate group of idiopathic chronic coughers, but even for them approaches are being devised to clarify und- lying mechanisms and to establish diagnoses. Perhaps surprisingly, the ?eld in which there has been the least spectacular - vance is the therapy of cough.