Immunologists, perhaps understandably, most often concentrate on the human immune system, an anthropocentric focus that has resulted in a dearth of information about the immune function of all other species within the animal kingdom. However, knowledge of animal immune function could help not only to better understand human immunology, but perhaps more importantly, it could help to treat and avoid the blights that affect animals, which consequently affect humans. Take for example the mass death of honeybees in recent years – their demise, resulting in much less pollination, poses a serious threat to numerous crops, and thus the food supply. There is a similar disappearance of frogs internationally, signaling ecological problems, among them fungal infections. This book aims to fill this void by describing and discussing what is known about non-human immunology. It covers various major animal phyla, its chapters organized in a progression from the simplest unicellular organisms to the most complex vertebrates, mammals. Chapters are written by experts, covering the latest findings and new research being conducted about each phylum. Edwin L. Cooper is a Distinguished Professor in the Laboratory of Comparative Immunology, Department of Neurobiology at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.

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General Immunology provides a general overview of the immune system. It presents topics in immunology from all living groups, treating cells, tissues, organs, and organismal levels of biological organization. The book contains 23 chapters organized into eight sections. Section I serves as an introduction to immunology—a science, a sketch of its history, some of its more recent contributors, something about gathering facts, immunology journals, and the entire biomedical enterprise of which immunology is just a part. Section II is devoted to antigens while Section III examines the immune system in chordates and the ontogeny of the immune system. Section IV on cells of the immune system covers monocytes, macrophages, the three granulocytic types, and mast cells. Section V deals with phagocytosis and the interaction of lymphocytes. Section VI is devoted to antigens in relation to antibody synthesis, antigen-antibody interactions, immunologlobulin structure, and immunologlobulin assembly. Section VII on organs of the immune system examines bone marrow, thymus, spleen, lymph nodes, and lymphoid aggregations. Section VIII discusses the evolution of the immune system. This text was written for advanced undergraduates. However, its comprehensiveness makes it useful to immunologists and biologists at all levels as well as medical students and clinicians.

Many invertebrates are serious pests of agriculture (e.g., mites and locusts), vectors of disease (e.g., mosquitoes and aquatic snails) and venomous (e.g., scorpions), whilst others are beneficial to humans as pollinators, food sources, and detritivores. Despite their obvious ecological, medical, and economic importance, this is the first comprehensive review of invertebrate diseases to be available within a single volume. Concurrent molecular and bioinformatics developments over the last decade have catalysed a renaissance in invertebrate pathology. High-throughput sequencing, handheld diagnostic kits, and the move to new technologies have rapidly increased our understanding of invertebrate diseases, generating a large volume of fundamental and applied research on the topic. An overview is now timely and this authoritative work assembles an international team of the leading specialists in the field to review the main diseases and pathologic manifestations of all the major invertebrate groups. Each chapter adopts a common plan in terms of its scope and approach to achieve a succinct and coherent synthesis. Invertebrate Pathology is aimed at graduate students and researchers in the fields of disease ecology, invertebrate biology, comparative immunology, aquaculture, fisheries, veterinary science, evolution, and conservation. It will be particularly useful for readers new to the field as well as a broader interdisciplinary audience of practitioners and resource managers.

Glycopeptides—Advances in Research and Application: 2012 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Glycopeptides. The editors have built Glycopeptides—Advances in Research and Application: 2012 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Glycopeptides in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Glycopeptides—Advances in Research and Application: 2012 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Fish Diseases theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and certain parasites, have thus far been suggested as the main culprit for declining aquaculture production and are thus deemed responsible to for huge losses amounting to billions of dollars annually. There are a number of fish diseases that are of utmost importance due to their debilitating effects on both cultured and marine fish, and includes Streptococcosis caused by a number of Steptococcus spp., Furunclosis, Vibriosis, Edwasiellosis, Mycobacteriosis, Nocardiosis, to name a few. The need to prevent and counteract the effect of these diseases is therefore of paramount importance. In recent years, we saw the increase in studies focusing on fish diseases particularly on those involved in unveiling the etiological agents of the diseases and how to properly treat or eradicate them, which often involved chemotherapy or administration of antibiotics. To lessen the use of antibiotics which arguably brings with it harmful side effects, a lot have been put into the development of effective prophylactic methods against fish diseases such as vaccines and also on finding efficient and reliable means of diagnosing the disease. The volume covers in detail the various diseases in fish and shellfish caused by bacteria and viruses. The contributing authors of each section have had extensive experience with fish diseases and have outlined what we need to know regarding a particular disease in a manner that is both easy to understand and apply. In Chapter 1, the various methods for disease diagnosis, prevention including vaccination and treatment of fish diseases are discussed. Chapter 2 includes and presents the various ways fish and shellfish protect themselves or fight off disease causing pathogens through their immune systems. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the diseases caused by bacterial pathogens in inland water (or freshwater) and marine water, respectively. These chapters include the identification of bacterial species responsible for the diseases and how to properly diagnose and treat them. Chapter 5 presents fish diseases caused by viral pathogens, their etiological agents, diagnosis and treatment.