“novartis foundation symposium”

Smooth muscle contraction is a vital component of the functioning of blood vessels, the uterus, airways and the bladder. Its malfunction can lead to serious pathological conditions, such as hypertension and pre-term labour. The calcium ion plays a central role in its function, increasing in concentr... More

Although normally thought of as a sex hormone, recent research has highlighted the numerous and significant effects that oestrogen has on the CNS, extending far beyond its important reproductive role. It has been shown that oestrogen acts as a neural growth factor with important influences on the su... More

Drug resistance in epilepsy is an important clinical problem. About 200f patients diagnosed as having epilepsy fail to respond to prescribed antiepileptic drugs and continue to have seizures. But despite the size of the problem, remarkably little attention has been paid to the biological basis of re... More

The ability at the molecular level to keep track of time is a property shared by organisms ranging from the simplest unicells to humans. The primary feature of these biological clocks is their ability to entrain to environmental stimuli. The dominant stimulus comes from environmental light cues, whi... More

Cells change their shape and by alternating their internal cytoskeleton. The dynamics of the cytoskeletal structure underline these changes, thus the signals that drive the changes must be interpreted by cellular machinery in order to carry out the required remodelling. Until recently, it has been v... More

The heart beats an estimated three billion times during the lifespan of the average person. Each of these cycles of contraction depends on specialized cardiac tissues involved in the rhythmic generation and coordinated spread of electrical excitation. Collectively, these tissues are known as the pac... More

Over recent decades vast amounts of biological data have been accumulated. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to apply traditional theoretical methods to the formulation of coherent pictures of cell and organ function because it is no longer possible for a human theorist to integrate all... More

Although nature employs a wide variety of sex-determining mechanisms, it is only comparatively recently that the tools have become available for these to be explored at the molecular and cellular levels. A major landmark was the discovery in 1990 of the Sry gene and the subsequent demonstration of i... More

This groundbreaking book brings together contributions by leading scientists from different fields to provide a balanced view of the spectrum of current studies on autism. Four main areas of research are covered. Twin and family data indicate that the heritability of the underlying liability to auti... More