Principles of Endocrinology and Hormone Action

Antonino Belfiore is Professor of Endocrinology and Head of the Endocrine Unit at the University of Catanzaro, Italy. He obtained his MD degree at the University of Catania, Italy, and graduated in Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases (University of Catania) and Nuclear Medicine (University of Padoa). He completed a PhD in Endocrine and Metabolic Sciences (University of Naples) and has been visiting research fellow at the University College of London, Clinical Immunology Department, and at the University of San Francisco, Diabetes Research Branch. Dr. Belfiore was Assistant Professor in Endocrinology at the University of Catania from 1986 to 1998, and Associate Professor of Endocrinology at the University of Catanzaro from 1998 to 2006. He has a longstanding interest in the epidemiology, clinical aspects, and biology of thyroid diseases and in endocrine-related tumors. He is head of the Endocrinology research lab at the University of Catanzaro, and the current main interestsof his research group concern the study of IGF system dysregulation in human cancer, with a particular focus on the role of the insulin receptor, its isoforms, and molecular modulators of these receptors in cancer.Derek LeRoith is Professor of Endocrinology at the Clinical Research Institute at Rambam (CRIR), Haifa, Israel, where he is Director of the Diabetes and Metabolism Clinical Research Center of Excellence, Rambam Health Care Campus. Before joining CRIR in 2010, he was Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, and Chief of the Diabetes Branch at the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. He has published over 500 original research papers, reviews, and editorials and edited a number of books on diabetes and IGF-related topics.

• The endocrine system.- Crosstalks between the endocrine, nervous and immune systems.- Hormone synthesis, secretion and transport.- Hormone receptors and signal transduction processes.- Mechanisms of control and termination of the hormonal action.- The classical endocrine system and endocrine glands.- The hypothalamus – pituitary axis.- The posterior pituitary.- The thyroid.- The parathyroids.- The adrenal glands.- The endocrine pancreas.- The testis.- The ovary.- Non-classical endocrine organs.- Hormone measurement and testing of endocrine function.- The endocrine regulation of energy and body weight.- The endocrine regulation of blood pressure.- The endocrine control of prenatal and neonatal growth.- Endocrinology of puberty.- The endocrine control of pregnancy.- Hormones and aging.- Principles of endocrine diseases.- Genetics and endocrine function.- Hormones and cancer.