Proteins: Structure and Function. David Whitford. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2005, 542 pp., paperback, $65.00. ISBN 0-471-49894-7.

Abstract

Back in the early 1970s, when I was a guest at the National Institutes of Health, a protein biochemist lamented that there was no future in studying proteins—interest had shifted to nucleic acids. It was becoming easier to learn the amino acid sequence of a protein by sequencing its cDNA bases than by the classic techniques of protein chemistry. Now, however, the pendulum has swung, and proteins are recognized to be the active molecules that the vast DNA libraries encode; proteomes are surpassing genomes. Cloning has allowed preparation of almost any desired modification of a protein, and combinatorial techniques have shown interactions of proteins with each other and with smaller molecules. There …