Protein Physics: A Course of Lectures (Soft Condensed Matter, Complex Fluids and Biomaterials Serie)

Protein Physics is a lively presentation of the most general problems of protein structure, folding and function from the physics and chemistry perspective, based on lectures given by the authors. It deals with fibrous, membrane and, most of all, with the best studied water-soluble globular proteins, in both their native and denatured states. The major aspects of protein physics are covered systematically, physico-chemical properties of polypeptide chains; their secondary structures; tertiary structures of proteins and their classification; conformational transitions in protein molecules and their folding; intermediates of protein folding; folding nuclei; physical backgrounds of coding the protein structures by their amino acid sequences and protein functions in relation to the protein structure. The book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate level students and researchers of biophysics, biochemistry, biology and material science.

• Designed for a wide audience of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as being a reference for researchers in academia and industry
• Covers the most general problems of protein structure, folding, and function and introduces the key concepts and theories
• Deals with fibrous, membrane and especially water-soluble globular proteins, in both their native and denatured states
• Summarizes and presents in a systematic form the results of several decades of world wide fundamental research on protein physics, structure and folding
• Examines experimental data on protein structure in the post-genome era

Alexei V. Finkelstein is the Head of the Laboratory of Protein Physics at the Institute of Protein Research, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is also a Full Professor in Biophysics at the Pushchino Department of the Lomonosov Moscow State University. He won the National Prize of Russia in Science in 1999 and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar. He is the author of about 150 papers on protein physics.Oleg B. Ptitsyn (deceased 1999) was the Head of Protein Physics Laboratory at the Institute of Protein Research, Russian Academy of Sciences and a Visiting Scientist at the Laboratory of Experimental and Computational Biology, Molecular Structure Section, National Cancer Institute, USA. He was also a member of the European Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Prize of Russia in Science (1999). He authored about 250 papers on polymer and protein physics.Their laboratory is one of the most distinguished in the world for its work in protein physics. It is one of the few laboratories outside the USA to receive support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Both scientists have very high international reputations, Professor Finkelstein is frequently invited to conferences in Europe and in the USA, as was Professor Ptitsyn before his recent death.