The authors and publishers are pleased to present the thirty-first edition of Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry. The first edition, entitled Harper’s Biochemistry, was published in 1939 under the sole authorship of Dr Harold Harper at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, California. Presently entitled Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry, the book continues, as originally intended, to provide a concise survey of aspects of biochemistry most relevant to the study of medicine. Various authors have contributed to subsequent editions of this medically oriented biochemistry text, which is now observing its 79th year. Cover Illustration for the Thirty-first Edition The illustration on the cover of the thirty-first edition, the structure of Zika virus protein determined at 3.8 Å resolution, was generously prepared and provided by Lei Sun.
The supporting data appeared in: Sirohi D, Chen Z, Sun L, Klose T, Pierson TC, Rossmann MG, Kuhn RJ: “The 3.8 Å resolution cryo-EM structure of Zika virus protein”, Science 2016;352:497-470. Together with the Zika virus, first recovered in the Zika valley of Uganda, the viruses responsible for yellow fever, West Nile fever, and dengue fever are members of the Flavivridae family of positivestrand DNA viruses. The cover illustration indicates the resolving power of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). More importantly, it recognizes the medical significance of infection by the Zika virus, which in pregnant women can result in a significant risk of congenital microcephaly and associated severe mental impairment. While Zika virus typically is transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito, emerging evidence suggests that under certain conditions the Zika virus may also be transmitted between human subjects.