This volume provides structural data of selected proteins, physical and chemical properties of amino acids, peptides and proteins, and information on theoretical studies. The pace at which new data are being generated in the biological sciences is breathtaking. However, it also creates a problem. Vast amounts of unsurveyable information may actually turn into desinformation by obliterating the borderlines of high and low quality data. Therefore authoritative data compilations bearing the state of the art approval of experts in the field are becoming increasingly important in view of this knowledge explosion. Another aspect of science development necessitates the availability of critically reviewed data compilations. We are witnessing an ever increasing degree of interdependence between previously more or less independently evolving branches of science. For example biotechnology and the pharmaceutically sciences are thriving as much on new findings in molecular biology as they profit from structural or thermodynamic information.