Free Radicals: A Practical Approach

With the recognition that oxygen and nitrogen radicals are involved in normal cell metabolism, free radical research has begun to feature in most disciplines in the life sciences. Increasingly, their implication in a number of human disease processes is being accepted, altough conclusive evidence is lacking in many instances, partly due to the difficulties in detecting and measuring free radicals that have lifetimes measured in microseconds. This book outlines the latest techniques for quantifying radicals and their effects, and features detailed protocols, hints, and tips for success, troubleshooting comments, sample data, and key literature citations.

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

With the recognition that oxygen and nitrogen radicals are involved in normal cell metabolism, free radical research has begun to feature in most disciplines in the life sciences. Increasingly, their implication in a number of human disease processes is being accepted, altough conclusive evidence is lacking in many instances, partly due to the difficulties in detecting and measuring free radicals that have lifetimes measured in microseconds. This book outlines the latest techniques for quantifying radicals and their effects, and features detailed protocols, hints, and tips for success, troubleshooting comments, sample data, and key literature citations.

Gene A. Homandberg

This manual from the Practical Approach series is a compilation of techniques in free radical research as contributed by 44 contributors from numerous disciplines. It covers physicochemical methods of free radical detection, biochemical methods of detection, measurement of free radical products, and measurements of antioxidants, including measurement of antioxidant gene expression. This manual is meant to provide detailed practical knowledge of fundamental as well as newer techniques to those new to free radical research. This is especially of value because of the rapid expansion of our knowledge of the role of free radicals in normal cell metabolism and human diseases. Although this is a methods book, it would have been useful to provide, as an introduction, a broader overview of known functions of free-radicals in cell metabolism, especially in terms of signal transduction. The audience is meant to be primarily biochemists and secondarily molecular biologists and cell biologists. This book has the typical attractive and very easy-to-read format of the Practical Approach series. It features at least several abbreviated protocols within each chapter as well as a list of suppliers at the end of the book. This book is highly recommended for the institutional as well as personal library because of the ubiquitous nature of free radical research. A manual on methods was sorely needed in this area and this book will be very useful.

Punchard, Neville A. (Univ of Luton); Kelly, Frank J. (St Thomas's Hospital, London)

The contributors represent the specialties of biochemistry, cell biology, toxicology, physical chemistry, molecular biology, pathology, microbiology, pharmacology, and biophysics. Most are from academic hospitals, universities, and research institutes in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., Canada, Israel, Japan, and Russia. Institutions prominently represented include Cornell Univ, London Hosp, Univ of Kentucky, Univ of Leicester, Hebrew Univ, Heart Research Institute, Univ of Oklahoma, Keio Univ, NIH, and Vanderbilt.