Molecular Biology of B Cells - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0120536412 ISBN 13: 9780120536412

Publisher: Academic Press, 2004

Synopsis

Molecular Biology of B Cells is a comprehensive reference to how B cells are generated, selected, activated and engaged in antibody production. All these developmental and stimulatory processes are described in molecular and genetic terms to give a clear understanding of complex phenotyes. The molecular basis of many diseases due to B cell abnormality is also discussed. This definitive reference is directed at research level immunologists, molecular biologists and geneticists.

About this title

Review:

A definative reference on the molecular biology of B cells.

About the Author:

Prof. Dr Michael Reth has won the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize, awarded by the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, for his research on the immune system. For the first time since 1996, the prize goes to a scientist working in Germany. Dr Reth is Professor for Molecular Immunology at the Institute of Biology III of the University of Freiburg and Scientific Director of the Cluster of Excellence BIOSS, Centre for Biological Signalling Studies. He is also head of the department for Molecular Immunology at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE). The prize is endowed with €100,000 and is one of the highest honours in science in Germany. By awarding the prize to Dr Reth, the Foundation has chosen to honour a scientist who, like Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich, decodes how immunity operates at a molecular level, in order to find new therapies for cancer and infectious diseases.

“This award is a great honour for me, because I deeply admire Paul Ehrlich’s work in immunology, Dr Reth said. “He was one of the first scientists to consider the molecular level in this field. Following Ehrlich’s scientific tradition, Dr Reth chose to focus his research on how the human body recognises foreign substances. “Due to the success of vaccinations, which was one of the greatest achievements in medicine, immunology has been an applied science from the beginning. However, we still do not fully understand the processes that underlie immunisation, Dr Reth remarks. That is why his research revolves around the B cell component of the immune system. When activated, these blood cells produce antibodies to fight off infection. Dr Reth investigates the structure and organisation of the B cell antigen receptors. These molecules on the surface of B cells recognise foreign substances, so-called antigens, and trigger the activation of the immune system. Dr Reth was able to describe the basic structure of the antigen receptor of B cells for the first time in 1989. Together with his research group, he developed a new model for the activation of this receptor and recently provided further experimental evidence for this model.

Furthermore Dr Reth has shown that receptors on the plasma membrane have a more complex structure than previously assumed. They are not freely diffusing on the cell surface but are organized in 50 to 150 nanometre sized membrane patches also called protein islands. The detailed analysis of the organization of receptors on the cellular membrane is a focus of research at the BIOSS Centre for Biological Signalling Studies, the cluster of excellence directed by Dr Reth since 2007.

Located in the Signalhaus in Freiburg, BIOSS brings together engineers and biologists to investigate signalling processes using methods of synthetic biology. In the spirit of BIOSS’s motto “from analysis to synthesis , researchers re-construct signalling cascades or develop new kinds of systems altogether - for example, hydrogels that release medication in a temporally controlled way, or signalling proteins that can be switched on and off with light.

About Michael Reth:

In 1989 Michael Reth joined Nobel laureate George Köhler’s laboratory at the MPI and later on was appointed Chair of Molecular Immunology at the University of Freiburg. He was awarded the Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 1995 and the EFIS-Schering-Plough European Immunology Prize in 2009.

In 2012, Michael Reth was awarded an advanced grant by the European Research Council (ERC).

About this edition

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0120536412
• ISBN 13: 9780120536412
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 600
• Editor: Reth Michael, Radbruch Dr. Andreas, Alt Frederick, Honjo Tasuku, Neuberger Michael