edited by Rajen Koshy (Department of Virology, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, UK) & Wolfgang H Caselmann (Department of General Internal Medicine, University of Bonn, Germany)

Rajen Koshy obtained his PhD in 1976 from the University of Bombay and completed his postdoctoral training at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, USA. He was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA, and then a Senior Scientist and Group Leader in the Department of Virus Research at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried (near Munich), Germany. At present, he is Senior Lecturer at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital, in London. Dr Koshy has been working on the hepatitis B virus since 1980.

Wolfgang H Caselmann obtained his MD degree from Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. He received his molecular-biological postgraduate training in the Department of Virus Research at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, Germany, where he was Heisenberg Fellow of Medicine. He completed clinical specialisation in hepatology and gastroenterology in the Department of Medcine II at Munich University. He has been working under grants from the Federal Ministry of Research and Technology, the European Community and the German Research Foundation, and has won a number of national awards. Presently, he is Associate Professor of Gastroenterology and Section Head in the Department of General Internal Medicine at the University of Bonn, Germany. Since 1995, he has been serving as Assistant/Associate Editor of the Journal of Hepatology.

The book covers both the molecular aspects of hepatitis B virus replication and gene expression in vivo and in model systems, and the clinical impact of genetic variants or immunological response in chronic infection. Major emphasis is laid on the molecular mechanisms underlying hepatitis B virus-associated liver carcinogenesis and their possible relevance to therapy and to the prevention of infection. Rational approaches to design novel vaccines or cytokine treatments, as well as strategies to develop vectors for liver-directed gene therapy, are discussed.

• Molecular Biology of Hepatitis B Virus:
  • Replication of the Hepatitis B Virus Genome (C Seeger & W S Mason)
  • The Regulation of Hepatitis B Virus Gene Expression: An Overview of the Cis- and Trans-Acting Components (M J Kosovsky et al.)
  • Animal Models and Experimental Systems in Hepatitis B Virus Research (S Schaefer et al.)
• Infection and Chronic Disease:
  • Natural Course of HBV Infection (H E Blum et al.)
  • Genetic Variants of HBV (T J Harrison)
  • The Immunology of Chronic Hepatitis B (B Rehemann & F Chisari)
• Hepatocellular Carcinoma:
  • HBV DNA Integration and Insertional Mutagenesis (K Koike)
  • Transactivators of HBV, Signal Transduction and Tumorigenesis (W H Caselmann & R Koshy)
  • Oncogenes, Tumour Suppressors, and Co-Factors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma (H Nagai & M A Buendia)
• Rational Approaches for the Prevention of Infection and Therapy:
  • Hepatitis B Virus Vaccines (F Schödel)
  • Chronic Hepatitis B Viral Infection: Cytokines and Therapy (G R Foster & H C Thomas)
  • The Development of Targettable Vectors for the Liver and Prospects for Treatment (L Weiss & P H Hofschneider)