Annual Review of Biochemistry 1959 [antikvár]

PREFACE Having been advised that the Board of Directors of Annual Reviews is engaged in a study of several proposals for the organization of Reviews in certain other sciences, we consider that it may be timely to appraise the present status of the Annual Review of Biochemistry. How does this Review fit into the scheme of things? Does it still perform a useful function? Is it able to keep abreast of the ever rising flood of primary publications in Biochemistry ? Are the individual reviews sufficiently critical ? Do the authors succeed in giving a fair appraisal of the present status of the subject within the relatively few pages that each has at his disposal? Is there too much duplication of content from chapter to chapter or between neighboring Reviews or are there serious gaps-repeated omission of lively areas of biochemical research? We shall not attempt to answer these and many related questions. We present them to our readers only because we would welcome their comments and advice. Indeed, we suspect that the Board would be glad to learn whether teachers and investigators in the various sciences may not even be frustrated by current increases of considerable magnitude in reviews of all sorts throughout many of the sciences. Perhaps we can sympathize with a distinguished colleague abroad who displayed something bordering on irritation when learning of still another Review. "Too much to read already; what we really need is more time in the laboratory and less time in the library." The authors of the reviews in this present volume were selected by the Committee about two years ago. Although each had complete freedom of movement within his allotted space, the restrictions that had to be imposed upon length of manuscript and time of preparaton may have seriously curtailed the liberty of those who were eager to make broad excursions and detailed surveys throughout the expanding domains of subject matter that were theirs. We convey to them, one and all, our very sincere thanks for their devoted efforts in a very difficult task. We greatly regret that circumstances entirely beyond their control denied to two of the prospective authors the possibility of completing their manuscripts on time; we refer to the proposed reviews on "Biological Oxidations" and "Cellular Permeability to Organic Metabolites." Margaret Janofsky has served most helpfully as the editorial assistant principally responsible for seeing the manuscripts through the press. Dr. Gordon Nordby gave us his generous assistance in preparing the subject index. To them we are greatly indebted for their devoted help. Finally we wish to express our thanks to our printers, the George Banta Company, with whom we have continued to enjoy a most cordial relationship and complete co-operation.