Biological Water (eBook)

This book embraces all physiochemical aspects of the structure and molecular dynamics of water, focusing on its role in biological objects, e.g. living cells and tissue, and in the formation of functionally active structures of biological molecules and their ensembles. Water is the single most abundant chemical found in all living things. It offers a detailed look into the latest modern physical methods for studying the molecular structure and dynamics of the water and provides a critical analysis of the existing literature data on the properties of water in biological objects. Water as a chemical reagent and as a medium for the formation of conditions for enzymatic catalysis is a core focus of this book. Although well suited for active researchers, the book as a whole, as well as each chapter on its own, can be used as fundamental reference material for graduate and undergraduate students throughout chemistry, physics, biophysics and biomedicine.

Gertz I. Likhtenshtein received his Ph.D. (1963) and Doctor of Science (1972) degrees at the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Science, as was awarded the title of Professor in 1976. In 1992, he became Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Ben-Gurion University of Negev, Israel, and Head of the Laboratory of Chemical Biophysics. He has been Emeritus Professor there since 2003. In 2015, he returned to the Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics as Advisor to the Director. Among his numerous awards are the Medal of the Exhibition of Economic Achievement (1968), the Diploma of Discovery USSR for his works on nitrogen fixation (1969), the USSR State Prize for pioneering research on spin labeling in molecular biology (1977), the Diploma of the Israel Chemical Society (2000), the Academician V. V. Voevodsky International Prize for ESR in biology (2008), the Medal from the President of the Academy of Science of the Republic of Tajikistan (2008), and the Academician N. M. Emanuel Golden Medal (2015). In 2018, he was elected as Foreign Member of the Academy of Science of the Republic of Tajikistan and is currently Member of the International ESR Society, the American Biophysical Society, the Israel Chemical Society, and the Israel ESR Society. Presently, his main scientific interests focus on the mechanism of light-energy conversion and on novel methods of immunoassay, nitrous oxide, and antioxidants analysis. He is Author of 12 scientific books and around 490 peer-reviewed scientific papers.