Book excerpt: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Biochemistry: Principles and Applications focuses on the principles and applications of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) in biochemistry. Topics covered include experimental methods in NMR; the mechanisms of NMR relaxation; chemical and paramagnetic shifts; spin-spin splitting; the use of NMR in investigations of biopolymers and biomolecular interactions; and molecular dynamics in biological and biochemical systems. This text is comprised of eight chapters; the first of which gives an overview of NMR spectroscopy and its use in studies of biological systems. The next two chapters discuss the theoretical basis for NMR applications in biochemistry, with emphasis on Bloch equations, quantum mechanics, correlation function and correlation time, double resonance, and chemical exchange. The reader is then introduced to the basis for chemical shifts and spin-spin splitting, along with several examples of the use of these NMR parameters in studies of small molecule interactions and structure. The experimental apparatus and procedures employed in NMR studies, Fourier transform NMR, and NMR spectral parameters of small molecules interacting with macromolecules are also considered. The book highlights the information obtainable from the spectra of biopolymers, and then concludes with a chapter on NMR investigations of the state of motion of lipids in membranes and model membranes; water in macromolecular and cellular systems; and sodium ion in biological tissue. This book is intended primarily for chemists, biochemists, biophysicists, and molecular biologists, as well as graduate students.