Advanced Chemical Biology

Book excerpt: Advanced Chemical Biology The modern approach to teaching chemical biology Advanced Chemical Biology is organized around the central dogma of life, progressing from genes to proteins and higher-order cellular structures, including core application areas such as imaging, chemical genetics, activity-based protein profiling, and natural product discovery and biosynthesis. Advanced topics and applications in, e. g., microbiology, developmental biology, and neurobiology, are covered in separate sections. Every chapter is homogeneous in style and layout, consisting of a short historical introduction followed by a description of the underlying concepts and a selection of recent examples of how the concept has been turned into practice. The subdivision of the contents into core and supplemental chapters enables a flexible use in teaching, both for a one-semester and a two-semester course. Written by authors and editors coming from the leading scientific institutions that have developed the concepts and technologies for this discipline, Advanced Chemical Biology includes specific information on topics like: DNA function, synthesis and engineering, chemical approaches to genome integrity, and RNA function, synthesis, and probing Chemical approaches to transcription and RNA regulation in vivo, chemical biology of genome engineering, and peptide/protein synthesis and engineering Directed evolution for chemical biology, chemical biology of cellular metabolism, chemical biology of lipids, and protein post-translational modifications Chemical glycobiology, chemical and enzymatic modification of proteins, genetic code expansion, bio-orthogonal chemistry, and cellular imaging With its broad scope and focus on turning concepts into applications, Advanced Chemical Biology is an excellent starting point for anyone entering the field and looking for a guide to the wide range of available methods and strategies that chemical biology has to offer. With a Foreword by Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi.