This book reports the proceedings of the International Symposium on Biotechnology in Clinical Medicine, which was held in Rome, April 13-15, 1987. In the preface of the book, Dr. Claude Lenfant, Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, notes that "important new developments can be expected from the continued evolution and application of biotechnology to clinical medicine. " The breadth of subjects covered in this book, the complexity of the technology presented,' and the potential of both for enhancing diagnosis and treatment attests to the importance of the new generation of research methodology.
Medical researchers over 40-45 years of age may not enjoy this book. The after-4:00 p.m. clinical investigator will certainly feel depressed, if not overwhelmed, by a feeling of hopelessness and inferiority as he or she attempts to understand the intricacies of the new technologies of the 1980s, 1990s and later. The book is certainly not a text for those wanting to know how to do new biotechnology; neither is it a simple way of obtaining a relatively rapid understanding of some of the methodology and its applications. It is far from light reading. It is perhaps better to peruse this book gently over days or weeks to evaluate the potential applications of the new technology. An up-to-date medical dictionary also would be useful as you read the book and try to decipher anti-idiotypes in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the sequence analysis of cDNA clones, or the development of specific probes for human M and B creatine kinase.
The first part of the book describes the use of RFLPs, dyslipoproteinemias, and recombinant DNA technology for the study of cholesterol transport. The next study reviews the molecular events during myocardial ischemia and reprofusion. This subject is increasingly important because of the availability of specific therapy to lyse coronary artery thrombi and prevent myocardial ischemia and infarction. The next major section, therefore, logically includes an important and extensive discussion of fibrin, fibrinolysis studies, and the use of specific plasminogen activators. These chapters are probably the easiest to understand and the most relevant for current medical practice. Several chapters related to protein C anticoagulation parameters are then presented. The initial chapters are interesting and relatively easy to interpret. However, as you delve further into the protein C anticoagulant system, the complexities underlying the genetic variants of the clotting system become readily apparent.
The next major section relates to antigen-antibody reactions. The section begins with a discussion of the molecular bases of cross-reaction antigenicity in proteins and 0 1988 Alan R. Liss, Inc.