Written with biologists, biochemists and other molecular scientists in mind, this volume meets the long-felt need for a textbook dedicated to the topic and recreates the excitement surrounding the scientific revolution sparked by the discovery of RNA interference in 1998. Students and instructors alike will profit from the author's exclusive first-hand knowledge, drawing on his breakthrough discoveries at the Tuschl lab at Rockefeller University. Gunter Meister abandons the traditionalist treatment of nucleic acids found in most biochemistry and molecular biology texts, adopting instead a modern approach in both concept and scope. The text is divided into three parts, on mRNA, non-coding RNA, and RNomics, and the author addresses the traditional roles of RNA in the transmission and regulation of genetic information, as well as the recently discovered functions of small RNA species in pathogen defense, cell differentiation and higher-level genomic regulation. All set to become the standard for teaching molecular science to biologists and biochemists.
Gunter Meister is the head of the department of biochemistry I of the University of Regensburg, Germany. He obtained his PhD degree from the University of Munich and the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, working on RNA-protein complexes. Thereafter, he joined the group of Tom Tuschl at the Rockefeller University in New York (USA), where he worked on RNA interference and small non-coding RNAs. After his postdoctoral time in New York, he went back to the Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry as independent group leader and head of the "RNA Biology" group. Gunter Meister has received an EMBO long-term fellowship as well as an Emmy Noether fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He was awarded the Max-Planck junior research award as well as the research award of the Engelhorn foundation.
