The tremendous progress made over the last decade in our understanding of biomembranes calls for a new gestalt in a book about their structure and function. The need for such a book was apparent as I labored to capture the explosion of information about the structure and organization of biological membranes for my course on membrane biochemistry. Applications of new techniques and whole new methodologies have changed both how we acquire knowledge of the membrane and how we view it. For many years, the difficulties in crystallization of membrane proteins caused a scarcity of structural detail. Now sophisticated diffraction analysis allows description of fluid lipid bilayers, and high-resolution structures have been determined for a variety of membrane proteins. Each new high-resolution structure of a membrane protein that graces a journal cover offers new insights into membrane functions. And yet, a full understanding of each new structure and its lipid environment is built on foundations of membrane biochemistry that derive from basic physical and life sciences.

This book combines a physicochemical analysis of the membrane milieu with the latest structural biology on membrane lipids and proteins to give an exciting portrayal of biomembranes. The book's title, Membrane Structural Biology, emphasizes the successes of structural biology in revealing exciting details of many membrane components. To see the impact of structural biology on biochemistry textbooks, one need only compare a biochemistry book from 25 years ago with a current textbook, in which colorful and detailed molecular structures illustrate the functions of biomolecules and mechanisms of complex biochemical processes.