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FOREWORD 



The formation of a new society provides an occasion for innovations in the 

 forms of meetings and publications. The Program Committee of the Bio- 

 physical Society attempted to seize this opportunity in arranging the 1958 meet- 

 ing at Cambridge. In addition to the usual short contributed papers, review 

 papers were scheduled for the three afternoon sessions to inform the member- 

 ship of progress and problems in selected areas of biophysics. The contributed 

 papers in these areas were allocated ample time for presentation and discus- 

 sion, resulting in what might be called "contributed symposia." Those work- 

 ing in the field had the advantages of a symposium type of meeting; those less 

 familiar had an introduction provided by the review papers followed by an 

 opportunity to participate in the detailed technical sessions. 



It also appeared desirable to alter the usual publication procedures. Custom- 

 arily the complete proceedings of "invited symposia" are published but only 

 the abstracts of short contributions. The twenty papers dealing with micro- 

 somal particles normally would be published individually during the next two 

 years, scattered through different issues of five or ten journals. Alternatively, 

 it would be possible to publish a transcript of the symposium. This procedure 

 would provide a more complete account than is given in the abstracts; the 

 material would be in one volume; and it could be issued much more rapidly 

 than individual contributions to journals. Both the Council of the Biophysical 

 Society and a majority of the contributors favored publication of the symposium 

 material. 



Transcripts, however, require an enormous editorial effort. It therefore 

 seemed preferable to request the contributors to provide their own edited tran- 

 scripts. These transcripts have been accepted with the understanding that pub- 

 lication in this volume which records material presented at a meeting would 

 not preclude later publication in the usual journals. 



The purpose of this volume is not to present well established theories or 

 reviews of well known work. Rather, it is to publish new facts and new data 

 while they are still fresh, useful, and possibly wrong. The relative costs of re- 

 search time and publication make such a book worth purchasing if it saves 

 no more than an hour of research time. The entire publication costs are justi- 

 fied if the book can save a month in some research program. 



