This book provides essential knowledge and informa-tion required to adequately assess useful alternatives from among the lower vertebrates and the invertebrates. This volume highlights unfamiliar and underde-veloped organisms that have the potential to become very satisfactory surrogates for biomedical research. A practical guide aimed at disseminating information to researchers about new models, this work provides compara-tive biomedical studies at many levels of the phyloge-netic ladder.

The collection of systems represented in Sourcebook of genomic programs, although this work is certainly well Models for Biomedical Research is an effort to re?ect the represented and indexed. diversity and utility of models that are used in biomedicine. Some models have been omitted due to page limitations That utility is based on the consideration that observations and we have encouraged the authors to use tables and made in particular organisms will provide insight into the ? gures to make comparisons of models so that observations workings of other, more complex, systems. Even the cell not available in primary publications can become useful to cycle in the simple yeast cell has similarities to that in the reader. humans and regulation with similar proteins occurs. We thank Richard Lansing and the staff at Humana for Some models have the advantage that the reproductive, guidance through the publication process. mitotic, development or aging cycles are rapid compared As this book was entering production, we learned of the with those in humans; others are utilized because individual loss of Tom Lanigan, Sr. Tom was a leader and innovator proteins may be studied in an advantageous way and that in scienti?c publishing and a good friend and colleague to have human homologs. Other organisms are facile to grow all in the exploratory enterprise. We dedicate this book to in laboratory settings or lend themselves to convenient analy- his memory. We will miss him greatly.

Animal models play crucial roles in the continuum of experimental activities that make up biomedical research. Such in vivo modes are especially important in proof-of-principle experiments and in establishing the preclinical safety and efficacy data required for progressing to human clinical trials. A practical understanding of the choice, care and use of animal models is thus expected and required of all biomedical researchers. However, while both legislations and the practice of laboratory animal science have made great advances in the last decade and have impacted significantly on the use of animal models, this corpus of knowledge is not readily available in formats easily digestible to the average biomedical researcher. This book fills this gap in knowledge and provides material not easily sourced by the average biomedical researcher, such as current information on bioimaging, occupational health and biosafety, animal protocol design and histological-pathological support.