In this special issue we gather together 23 articles (15 reviews, 7 research articles, and 1 methodology report) with diverse information presently available on animal models of human disease. The use of animal for studying human diseases, from the pathogenesis to the clinical aspects of diagnosis and therapy, has always been a very useful tool and indeed, has contributed enormously to our unde...

We huddled together on the bank of the river in the cool spring night, drinking tea and warming our hands at the fire. The full moon shone intermittently through the clouds, illuminating the river below. Suddenly from downstream came the cry "Flood-O!" We ran higher up the bank with a low, rumbling sound in our ears. As we reached the top of the bank a wall of water four feet high passed be­ lo...

I N T R O D U C T I O N “Many knowledgeable biologists would say, almost reflexly, that complex carbo­ hydrates probably play a pivotal role in determining the specificity of many biological recognition phenomenon” (Marchesi, Ginsburg & Robbins, 1978). So states the preface to an authorative symposium volume on surface carbohydrates. However, 16 years previously it was possible, in the light of...

To characterize the renln-angiotensin system in the Aokl-Okamoto spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) more fully, serial measurements of plasma renin activity (PRA), plasma renin concentration (PRC), renin reactivity (as relative index of circulating modifiers of the renin reaction) and renin substrate concentration were made in 6to 64-week-old SHR and in age-matched Wistar-Kyoto normotensive r...