Preface

After opening a new class of chemical reactions in 1964, reactions in which unpaired electrons of stable radicals were not involved, nitroxide (aminoxyl) radicals became one of the most interesting and rapidly developing area of modern physical chemistry with their application to biophysics, molecular biology, polymer sciences and medicine. Further development of this field depends on new pathways in the nitroxide chemistry, modern methods in EPR spectroscopy and revealing new perspective practical approaches. This book contains reviews of the authors actively working in three main areas of chemical physics: theoretical approaches, novel experimental results, and practical applications. The first chapter, written by Prof. Lawrence J. Berliner who started his work in this area just from its very beginning, describes the history of the spin label technique. Unfortunately, he did not practically pay attention to numerous publications of Soviet and Russian scientists, whose impact to the field was really great. This will be fixed in the next edition of the book. The following 14 chapters analyze in detail the modern state and some perspectives of various usages of nitroxide radicals.

The book, recommended by the Governing Council of N. Semenov International Center of Chemical Physics, Moscow, will be useful to many scientists: chemists, physical chemists, biophysicists, biologists, physicians and other experts in a variety of disciplines in which spin labels and probes are used, as well as to students and PhD students. It may be also suitable for teaching, and help promote the progress in natural sciences.

Any comments, remarks and advices from the readers will be appreciated for the next edition.

**Prof. Dr. Alexander I. Kokorin** 

Department of Kinetics and Catalysis, N. Semenov Institute of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

## **Section 1**
