Leafing through a journal of biology will almost certainly turn up
several arti- cles on some aspect of the eukaryotic cell division cycle.
The progress in un- derstanding the modus operandi of the cell cycle
machinery and its central role in controlling cell proliferation has
awakened a great deal of interest in many biologists. However, the cell
cycle field often seems unnecessarily complicated, perhaps because data
are acquired in bits and pieces and almost all simultane- ously from
studies using different systems and organisms. The aim of this book is
to make the background of the cell cycle field as unambiguous and clear
as possible by distinguishing what is commonly accepted in the field
from what are the unsolved problems. Therefore, this book is intended to
serve a large au- dience: graduate and postgraduate students, basic and
clinical scientists in- volved in the study of cell growth,
differentiation, senescence, apoptosis, and cancer. My hope is that this
book will stimulate further interest in the fascinat- ing field of the
cell cycle and help scientists find connections between this and their
fields of interest. This book brings together experts to review all
major aspects of the eukary- otic cell division cycle. The cell cycle is
a coordinated and highly regulated series of events during which the
cell replicates its DNA, and then divides.