Gertz I. Likhtenshtein - Biological Water: Physicochemical Aspects

Soft and Biological Matter is a series of authoritative books covering established and emergent areas in the realm of soft matter science, including biological systems spanning all relevant length scales from the molecular to the mesoscale. It aims to serve a broad interdisciplinary community of students and researchers in physics, chemistry, biophysics and materials science.

Pure research monographs in the series, as well as those of more pedagogical nature, will emphasize topics in fundamental physics, synthesis and design, characterization and new prospective applications of soft and biological matter systems. The series will encompass experimental, theoretical and computational approaches. Topics in the scope of this series include but are not limited to: polymers, biopolymers, polyelectrolytes, liquids, glasses, water, solutions, emulsions, foams, gels, ionic liquids, liquid crystals, colloids, granular matter, complex fluids, microfluidics, nanofluidics, membranes and interfaces, active matter, cell mechanics and biophysics.

Both authored and edited volumes will be considered.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10783

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

The role water, which is a crucial key component in the development of all aspects of life on Earth, in chemistry, biology, industry, and everyday life of human being cannot be overemphasized. Water provides an important chemical contribution to the functioning and degradation of biological systems. Water represents on average 5560% of the human body weight and is distributed throughout the body and organs. Health, life expectancy, daily comfort, and mood of every human being largely depend on the body water balance. Water plays a central role in regulating cell volume, nutrient transport, waste removal, and thermal regulation and provides a medium for biological reactions Adequate hydration is crucial in maintaining optimal physical and mental functioning, and the need for a fast and reliable hydration status assessment in behavioral medicine research has become increasingly important.

Water is fascinating in all its phases, forms, and states of aggregation and is unique in its number of anomalous properties. Seventy four anomalous properties of liquid are connected to its ability to form up to four well-defined hydrogen bonds allowing for different local structural arrangements. Classical and modern physical chemistry, chemical physics, chemical kinetics, organic, inorganic, and quantum chemistry provide an arsenal of physical methods and establish a basis for the investigation of structure and action mechanism of processes involving water.

Research in this area which combines fundamental importance of human welfare and intellectual fascination with exploring the unknown will promote solving exciting and complicated problems in biochemistry, biophysics, and medicines related to biological water (ec ee oya, y e oe).

The book is a view on the subject from a physical chemist with the long and broad expertise in chemical biophysics, enzyme catalysis, and physical methods of studying structure and dynamics of biological systems including hydrated biological molecules, in particular. The book is not intended to provide an exhaustive survey of each topic but rather a discussion of their theoretical and experimental background and recent developments. The literature on water is so vast, with so many scientists having made important contributions in the area that it is impossible in the space allowed for this book to give a representative set of references. In fact, for each section in this area, one can write several books. The author apologizes to those he has not been able to include.

Chapter is devoted to clinical aspects of water.

The book, as a whole, and separate chapters can be used as a subsidiary manual for instructors and graduate and undergraduate students of university chemistry, physics, biophysics, biochemistry, physiology, and medicine.

The department of Chemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Institute of Problem of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Science, provided excellent conditions for writing this book for which the author is extremely grateful.