Membrane Transport in Biology

Abstract

Recent years have seen an enormous increase in interest in the function of biological membranes. It has turned out that not only transport phenomena but also such important processes as oxidative metabolism, protein synthesis and several other synthetic processes are intimately connected with — and apparently dependent on — membrane processes. At the same time, the development of electron-microscopic methods has given reality to the originally hypothetical concept of plasma membranes and revealed a whole host of unknown membrane-covered organelles. This again means that arguments based on membrane properties have become integral parts of biological and medical thinking: one needs only to mention the role attributed to membrane processes in modern pharmacology and nerve physiology. But this prolific growth of interest in membranes has started out more or less independently in many areas of physiology, biochemistry, biophysics, anatomy, medicine, pathology, and pharmacology, all these areas developing their own nomenclature, their own experimental approaches and their own pet ideas and phobias. There has not been time for interdisciplinary exchange of information and ideas. There is a good chance that information or ideas which each of us is groping for in the dark are already available in another discipline engaged in membrane research.