Product Description

This fully revised and expanded third edition of "Ionic Channels of Excitable Membranes" describes the known channels and their physiological functions, then develops the conceptual background needed to understand their architecture and molecular mechanisms of operation. It includes new chapters on calcium signalling, structural biology, and molecular biology and genomics. The text begins with the classical biophysical work of Hodgkin and Huxley, continues with the roles of channels in cellular signaling, then develops the physical and molecular principles needed for explaining permeation, gating, pharmacological modification, and molecular diversity, and ends with a discussion of channel evolution. It is written to be accessible and interesting to life scientists and physical scientists of all kinds. It introduces all the concepts that a graduate student should be aware of but is also effective in advanced undergraduate courses.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70376 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 814 pages

About the Author
BERTIL HILLE teaches at the University of Washington. He won the 1999 Albert Lasker Award.

Customer Reviews

How can we live without ion channels
How many channels open and close while I am writing this review? How this kind of proteins has been discovered? How can I study this protein? Are some involved in disease? I have neither understood what an action potential is? How many channel are involved in it? Is there only ion channels in neuron and heart? What is an IV curve? How can these proteins discriminate between potassium and sodium?
You will have the answer, if your read the most read and cited textbook: "ionic channels in excitable membranes" written by Bertil Hille.
Twenty years after the first version and 10 years after the second, the beautiful baby is now a young and beautiful woman. Each edition have taken into account the state-of-the-art of the techniques and knowledge in the field. The first edition described the classical biophysical work of Hodgkin and Huxley as well as the patch-clamp technique; both being revolution in transmembrane transport studies. Then in the second edition, the cloning and characterization in heterologous system was added. And this last edition, take into account the last technical advance in biological studies: the structure of potassium channels and development of the genomics.
The main criticism that can done about this book is the title. Because since the first edition where most of the scientist though that ion channels are only present in excitable membrane, now everybody knows that ion channels are present in almost all membranes.
Every student and scientists interested in Ion channels, from excitable as well non-excitable membranes, have "Ion channels in excitable membrane".
I hope I could read the fourth edition in 2010.