Overviews are provided by Thomas M. Devlin (ed.), Textbook of Biochemistry: With Clinical Correlation, 3rd ed. (1992), a good general textbook for medical and graduate students; Lubert Stryer, Biochemistry, 4th ed. (1995), with excellent illustrations; Albert L. Lehninger, David L. Nelson, and Michael M. Cox, Principles of Biochemistry, 2nd ed. (1993); and J. David Rawn, Biochemistry, international ed. (1989), a strong text still of great utility. Joseph Needham (ed.), The Chemistry of Life: Eight Lectures on the History of Biochemistry (1970), provides a brief development of the important areas of photosynthesis, enzymes, microbiology, neurology, hormones, vitamins, and other topics. Frederic Lawrence Holmes, Hans Krebs, 2 vol. (1991–93), is a dense biography of one of the founders of modern biochemistry. Robert E. Kohler, From Medical Chemistry to Biochemistry (1982), compares the growth of the discipline in the United States, Britain, and Germany.
Particular topics are addressed in J. Etienne-Decant and F. Millot, Genetic Biochemistry: From Gene to Protein (1988; originally published in French, 1987), an overview of information flow from genes to proteins; Maria C. Lindner (ed.), Nutritional Biochemistry and Metabolism: With Clinical Applications, 2nd ed. (1991), on the dynamic roles that nutrients play in the structure and function of the human body; and P.K. Stumpf and E.E. Conn (eds.), The Biochemistry of Plants: A Comprehensive Treatise (1980– ). Richard E. Dickerson and Irving Geis, The Structure and Action of Proteins (1969), treats one of the essential types of biochemical molecules used by cells. Proteins and other molecules also are described and illustrated in Linus Pauling and Roger Hayward, The Architecture of Molecules (1964).
The subject of endocrinology has changed markedly amid the genetic revolution. A reliable work on this topic is Franklyn F. Bolander, Molecular Endocrinology, 2nd ed. (1994). D.G. Hardie, Biochemical Messengers: Hormones, Neurotransmitters, and Growth Factors (1991), also includes coverage of other signaling devices that have evolved at the molecular level.
Elmer H. Stotz Birgit Vennesland The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
