The series of books entitled New Scientific Pocket Library is being published jointly by the Eötvös Loránd Research Network (ELKH) and the Typotex Publisher. The objective of the ELKH Secretariat is to pass on the valuable knowledge available in the research network to university students and the scientific community. The varied articles drawing on the fields of mathematics, natural sciences, life sciences, humanities and social sciences are written by ELKH researchers. The second edition of the series entitled Protein Kinases – Function and Structure was written by Attila Reményi, scientific consultant to the ELKH Research Centre for Natural Sciences' Institute of Organic Chemistry. The book is available to purchase in the Typotex Publisher's shops and on their website, as well as in Libri and Lira bookshops, and on their respective websites. The electronic version will soon be available from the Interkönyv webshop and the eKönyv Magyarország website.
The role of protein kinases in cellular-level signal transduction has been researched intensively over the past three decades and has developed dramatically since the spatial structure of the first kinase was defined, just as studies of anatomy in terms of the structure of the human body lent great momentum to later research into human physiology. Cellular signal transduction is a biological process during the course of which our cells internally produce physiological responses to stimulation arriving from the outside world in accordance with their whole. On the basis of this it is not surprising that this is also an important domain for medical biology, where the development of the active ingredients of drugs can now take place in the knowledge of atomic structure. The purpose of the book is to provide chemists, biologists and physicians with a glimpse into the protein kinases responsible for cellular signal transduction processes, as well as introducing the relationships between biochemical structure and biological function.