Cell Membrane: The Red Blood Cell as a Model Yoshihito Yawata Membranes in human erythrocytes are the best model to understand the structure and functions of biological membranes. Recently, huge amounts of new information have been accumulated, especially about pathological conditions, and mutations pathognomonic for these disease states have been precisely identified, in addition to the clarification of characteristics of their phenotypes. There is now much evidence regarding the correlation between the genotypes and phenotypes in normal and disease states. This book fulfills the need to review these results and for a comprehensive and up-to-date source of knowledge in the field.