This series of books, devoted to aspects of blood cell biochemistry,
development, immu- nology, and ultrastructure, has evolved and separated
from the long-established Plenum series Subcellular Biochemistry. It is
the intention of these volumes to draw together related areas of
investigation and to provide, in the fullness of time, complete coverage
of this rapidly advancing important biomedical discipline. Both
fundamental and medically applied topics, dealing with normal and
pathological cells, will be included. This, the first volume of the
series, contains a diverse collection of chapters, all of which relate
to erythroid cells. The range of material included is extremely broad
and the authors have used contrasting technical approaches, both within
their personal experimen- tal studies and within their manuscripts. This
has led to the production of a very interest- ing compilation, which
does, nevertheless, possess a strong overall thematic unity. As with all
edited volumes, some topics of importance and interest are not included.
This may be because of oversight on my part, as editor, or because the
authors originally selected failed to submit their manuscript by the
agreed-upon submission date. For these omissions I take full
responsibility and trust that at least some of the topics omitted, for
instance membrane cation transport systems, will be covered within a
future volume of the series. This book commences with two chapters of a
developmental nature.
