Helvetian Press

Welcome to Helvetian Press, home of Thomas E Creighton’s The Physical and Chemical Basis of Molecular Biology and The Biophysical Chemistry of Nucleic Acids and Proteins. These titles have been published as a two-volume edition, as detailed on this page (click here for purchase details), and as a seven-volume edition (click here for details).

The twenty-one chapters of this volume present a comprehensive description of the fundamental physical and chemical phenomena that form the basis of molecular biology. Topics include the fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic properties of biochemical reactions in solution; the physical properties of aqueous solutions, including the hydrophobic effect; both individual and cooperative noncovalent interactions between atoms and molecules; mass spectrometry; and radioactivity. Methods for observing the structures of nucleic acids and proteins, including microscopy, scanning probes, crystallography and NMR, are explained in detail. The interactions of macromolecules with radiation of various types are described in terms of the information that they yield. The hydrodynamic properties of proteins and nucleic acids in aqueous solution and in molecular sieves are described to explain centrifugation and electrophoresis. The interactions of macromolecules with other molecules in solution and when attached to solid supports are described, explaining chromatography, blotting, affinity labeling, and cross-linking.

• Molecular biology

• Biophysical chemistry

• Biophysics

• Biochemistry

• Proteins

• Nucleic acids

DNA, RNA and proteins are undoubtedly the most important biological molecules. Being large macromolecules, their physical, chemical and biological properties can differ dramatically from those of the monomers from which they are made. Described here are their primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary structures; their evolutionary origins; their unfolding and refolding; their chemical synthesis and manipulation; their physical interactions with other molecules, which often result in catalysis of chemical reactions in one or both of them; and the various ways in which the catalytic activities of enzymes are controlled and regulated.

Color is used liberally throughout the volume to enhance the many illustrations.

• Molecular Biology Information Sheet

• Nucleic Acids & Proteins Information Sheet

• RNA

• DNA

• Spectroscopy

• Circular dichroism

• NMR

• EPR

• ESR

• Centrifugation

• Electrophoresis

• Gel filtration

• Ligand binding

• Chromatography