Biology of Disease

Units and drug nomenclature proved somewhat troublesome! For the sake

of consistency, we have generally tried to apply SI units whenever possible.

Within the UK, differing hospitals seem to apply units on a rather arbitrary

basis and, indeed, other countries, such as the USA, use differing units and

systems of nomenclature. Thus, for example, in the UK a serum cholesterol

concentration greater than 5 mmol dm–3is regarded as clinically dangerous

whereas the corresponding unit used in the US is 190 mg dL–1. In such cases, we

have generally made somewhat arbitrary decisions and used whatever units

seemed best suited to the purpose. We have applied a similarad hocsystem

for naming some biological materials and drugs. Thus, for example in the

USA adrenaline and paracetamol are called epinephrine and acetaminophen

respectively. We have used UK nomenclature.

We are grateful to the many people who helped in producingBiology of Disease,

especially to our graphic artist, Mick Hoult of Manchester Metropolitan

University, who not only drew and re-drew all of the many figures in the text

and frequently improved upon our initial hazy notions and crude sketches. We

would like to thank the numerous colleagues who offered helpful advice and

suggestions, and to the many individuals who supplied illustrations. We are

also grateful to our reviewers; in particular, Dr David Holmes of the University

of Northumbria at Newcastle-upon-Tyne who commented on nearly every

chapter but also to the individual reviewers of each respective chapter. Thanks

must also go to the team at Taylor & Francis, especially editorial assistant

Chris Dixon and editor Liz Owen, for their constant encouragement, and to

our production editor Karin Henderson. However, the authors themselves

take responsibility for any errors and omissions as well as for those parts of

the text that are still not as clear or comprehensive as they might be. We hope

that you will write and tell us how we can still further improve the book for the

benefit of future editions.

Nessar Ahmed

Maureen Dawson

Chris Smith

School of Biology, Chemistry and Health Science,

Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

and

Ed Wood

School of Biochemistry and Microbiology,

University of Leeds, UK

List of reviewers

David Holmes, University of Northumbria

Joyce Overfield, Manchester Metropolitan University

Richard Luxton, University of the West of England

Len Seal, Manchester Metropolitan University

Eileen Ingham, University of Leeds

David Bender, University College London

Khalid Rahman, Liverpool John Moores University

Howard Foster, University of Salford

John Gaffney, Manchester Metropolitan University

Brenda Price, Macclesfield District General Hospital

PREFACE

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