Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking, and Signaling

Rating:
Summary: A book for the modern biologist
Review: This book will surely be thought of as the first structured presentation of principles of modern systems biology. This book introduces the application of Chemical Engineering to biologists and molecular biology and pharmacology of receptors to Chemical Engineers. The top-down picture of coupled processes is not only new to biologists but introduces a whole new way to look at biological problems. Especially the chapter which has cell migration explained introduces one to multi-dimensional thinking: cell mechanics, biochemistry, kinetic modeling and molecular biology all in the same problem. This may seem mystical to many. Would probably be read more by Engineers than biologists, who are yet to take the leap in thought to multi-dimensional science.This book would be remembered after many years to be a pioneer in the new science of systems biology, although it was written much before the Human Genome Project. Systems thinking and Chemical Engineering has been much beneficial in solving some very important biomedical problems like Drug Delivery(Robert Langer), Tumor Biology(Rakesh Jain) and Tissue Engineering(Robert Langer et.al.). Lauffenburger's work would be counted among these shining lights when these methods and tools bear fruit sooner than later.(Lauffenburger has already provided a glimpse of success of this approach when he worked with Amgen to produce a much pharmacokinetically improved biologic using physiologically based pharmacokinetic model coupled with cellular modeling of receptor-ligand trafficking and binding model)Nature,5 August 2002.Lauffenburger and Linderman are geniuses seeking support for "return to science" for biology.