Preface/Front Matter

Abstract

With relief we note that the publication of this volume marks the completion of a project we naively began 3 years ago. Inspired by the enthusiasm and encouragement of our colleagues at the Molecular Biology of Yeast meeting at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1979 and by the excitement engendered by the results presented at the meeting, we set out to assemble a series of reviews of the multifarious topics that in sum constitute the molecular biology of the yeast Saccharomyces. The goal of this project was to produce a monograph that covered the field in sufficient depth and breadth so that it could serve as the definitive guide for the current workers in the field, as well as for those scientists who wished to enter the field or who merely had a passing interest in some aspect of yeast molecular biology. Clearly, though, yeast molecular biology, like any dynamic and rapidly expanding field of science, did not cease to grow during the course of our compilation of the reviews. Each of the articles was designed and edited to provide a comprehensive and insightful review of one particular aspect of the field. Many of the papers represent an updated view of an area that has been reviewed before. In other papers the authors have brought together observations and results not previously juxtaposed and evaluated. In total, therefore, the compilation of all of these reviews in a single monograph places the complete molecular biology of yeast at one’s fingertips. The end