ISBN 3-8055-7395-2     supported by  and 
            published by KARGER , Basel 2002
 
Reviews

HANS TUPPY
Profesor of Biochemistry at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna
Former Minister of Science of the Austrian Federal Republic
Former President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Former President of the Austrian Research Fonds
Former President of the Austrian of Biochemical Society
Honorary Doctor of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
Honorary Doctor of the University of Agricultural Sciences Vienna
Corrersponding Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Holy See, Rome
Corrersponding Member of the German Academy of Natural Scientists LEOPOLDINA
  
If we aim to obtain a deepened understanding of biologic phenomena in the normal as well as diseased organism, 
we must follow the logical course of looking at macroscopic biologic structures (as can be seen by the naked eyes) 
to ever smaller units, i.e. from the light microscopic, to the electon microscopic dimensions, down to those 
molecular structures and interactions that make life possible.
Professor Siegfried Schwarz, by applying molecular modelling software to x-, y-, z-atomic coordinate files 
(deposited in the Brookhaven Protein Data Bank, PDB) has visualized for the reader the structures of what he 
considers the most important biomolecules and their inherent potentials for conformational change and 
interactivity with other endogenous and exogenous molecules. The collection of 3-dimensional models of 
biomolecules, combined with explanatory and enlightening texts, has resulted in an impressive and most 
instructive  ¾picture book¾ of molecular biology. I am convinced that this book, MOLECULES OF LIFE will, due 
to its impressive graphic quality and vividness, provide  intellectual profit as well as esthetic pleasure to all 
those interested in biology and medicine, students as much as teachers.


HANS GRUNICKE
Profesor of Medical Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Medical Faculty of the University of Innsbruck
Former Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Innsbruck 
President of the Austrian Biochemical Society
Past President of the Austrian Society of Clinical Chemistry
Vice President of the German Cancer Society
Coordinating Editor of "Reviews in Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology"

This is an extraordinary book. It is extraordinary because the plethora of structural have never been published 
before data in so comprehensive manner in one book. Particularly extraordinary is the intellectual conception 
of this book. In contrast to general textbooks of biochemistry or cell biology, this book presents the interactions 
between biomolecules by showing their 3-dimensional structures rather than by abstract formulas or even more 
abstract acronyms. The reactions and interactions between the various biomolecules are shown by pictures of the 
atomic structures of the interacting contact domains rather than by reaction formulas. This conceptual reductionism 
gives the reader a deepened insight into the underlying biological phenomena in ist truest sense, and by the synopsis 
of the diverse chapters, a novel and modern picture of the essence of biology.
Moreover, the book must be regarded as extraordinary due to the esthetics of the images it presents, the beauty of 
nature is no longer concealed by reducing biologic phenomena to the mere description of molecular events and 
interactions! Rather the beauty of nature is at the atomic level, and the beauty of macroscopic structures 
are seen as projections of their diverse atomic compositions. 
This book will be enjoyed and appreciated not only by biologists, medical scholars or chemists with an interest 
in biology. It is particularly devoted to students. Only understanding the interrelationship between structure and 
function at the earliest possible stage, can students achieve insight of sufficient depth into the essence of biological 
phenomena and reactions, and this applies to students of medicine as well! Molecular biology has enormously deepened 
our knowledge of the various body functions as well as the fundamentals of various diseases, particularly those with 
a genetic basis, whether inherited or acquired. How dramatic the consequences of a point mutation can be will be clear 
to any reader right by the structural pictures shown in this book. May this book find the resonance and acceptance it 
truly deserves!


BERNHARD KRAEUTLER
Profesor of Organic Chemistry at the Natural Science Faculty of the University of Innsbruck
Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences

I am glad to recommend this extremely appealing book MOLECULES OF LIFE "a collection of instructive and beautiful 
pictures for medical students, physicians, biologists and all those interested" as a basis for educational lectures 
in medicine.
This book reflects the newly emerging field of molecular medicine and represents a model developed by a medical 
scholar with insight into modern advances in natural sciences and medicine to transfer this crucial information to 
the medical student¼s lecture hall.The recent experimental and methodological developments in medicine, molecular 
biology, structural biology and computer-assisted data reduction have made possible the discovery of many molecular 
and structural aspects of medicine and biology. By exploiting the Brookhaven Protein Data Bank (PDB)-deposited atomic 
coordinate files, this book represents an extraordinary compilation of detailed 3-dimensional structures of biological 
macromolecules (nucleic acids, proteins, protein-DNA complexes and others) with relevance to medical  students, 
scholars and doctors. Moreover, it guides the reader to further information on the Internet, i.e. from the PDB on the 
structures of shown and related further molecules, as well as from the OMIM (Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man Data 
Bank) on diseases resulting from genetically-caused deformations of these molecules. 
The book ¾MOLECULES OF LIFE¾ contains textual information, decorated by esthetic images, of molecules and diseases, 
as well as possibilities for pharmacological selected by the author. Because of this subjective selection, the book 
appears to me to represent an excellent guide to open the eyes of medical students and all those interested to the 
fascinating world of biomolecules. No doubt, this book will be an important basis for a modern instruction medicine 
and biology.



Part 1 of Index of molecules presented in this book
Part 2 of Index of molecules presented in this book
List of relevant web links