Preface/Front Matter

Abstract

The capacity to blunder slightly is the real marvel of DNA. Without this special attribute, we would still be anaerobic bacteria, and there would be no music.

Lewis Thomas, The Medusa & The Snail

In November 1990, one of the prestigious Banbury Conferences at Cold Spring Harbor was devoted to the molecular biology of free radical scavenging systems. That conference and a subsequent book published in 1992 brought together a great deal of information integrating the existing knowledge from the two relatively new areas of free radical biology and molecular biology. The seeds for the present book were sown over the last few years as numerous individuals suggested a more current and more encompassing volume to bring together the exceedingly rapid and significant developments in this field. With the urging and encouragement of John Inglis, Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, I undertook the task to arrange and develop this book. The invited chapters clearly reflect the state of the field and indicate future research directions in this very important and exciting area of modern biology.

Although the importance of reactive oxygen species (ROS) to biological systems has been recognized for some time, their significance to biological, medical, and agricultural problems has become more apparent with the advent and application of the methods of molecular genetics. The molecular dissection of oxidative stress and antioxidant defense systems is an exciting area in biological research. Oxidative reactions play a central role in biology. Oxidative metabolism supplies energy for most organisms,