Main description:

Filling a gap in the literature, this is the first overview of the central metabolism and how it is driven and connected by thermodynamics. It builds on the basics of biochemistry and discusses the ideas at a higher, more specialized conceptually-driven level.
As such this up-to-date book covers the core concepts as they relate to intermediary metabolism, yet, more specifically, focuses on the energy flow in the principal reactions of central metabolism and the energetics of the electron transport chain. The emphasis throughout is on controlling the speed of biochemical reactions through the complex network of positive and negative feedbacks. The book concentrates on particular aspects of metabolism and mammalian physiology to illustrate the logic governing core biological processes, how they are self-sustained, and how they are controlled by energetics, compartmentalization, selection, recognition, and interconnected feedback control loops as a series of well-defined, spatially-bounded but thermodynamically open systems.
A must-read for biochemists and biophysicists wishing to understand the central role of thermodynamics in our bodies.

Contents:

A Brief Review of Thermodynamics

A Thermodynamic Description of the Living System

Forms of Biochemical Energy and Work

Energy flow in intermediary metabolism

Membrane Thermodynamics and Membrane Potentials: A Prelude to Chemiosmotic Theory

Chemiosmotic Theory

ATP-Synthase, a Biomolecular Machine: Structure, Function, and Dynamics

Selection and Molecular Recognition

Elements of Control and Cybernetics in Biochemical Networks

The Chemical Logic of Metabolism and its Overall Plan

The Contribution of Bioenergetics to the Eternal Emergence vs. Reductionism Debate

So What is Life then Mr. Schrodinger?