Penicillins and Cephalosporins

Chemistry and Biology of ?-Lactam Antibiotics, Volume 1: Penicillins and Cephalosporins provides information pertinent to the study of antibiotics containing the ?-lactam moiety. This book discusses the occurrence of a group of ?-lactam antibiotics structurally related to cephalosporin C. Organized into five chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the mechanism of action of ?-lactam antibiotics that caused many microbiologists to develop screening tools for the detection of the ?-lactam moiety. This text then discusses the discovery of the nocardicins, the thienamycins, and olivanic acids. Other chapters provide a summary of the essential penicillin sulfoxide chemistry that gave rise to many compounds. This book discusses as well the ability of chemists to predict the level of biological activity of a compound from knowledge of its structure through theoretical and physicochemical studies. The final chapter deals with quantitative structure-activity relationships. This book is a valuable resource for microbiologists, chemists, and scientists.