This book contains the Invited Lectures delivered at the meeting "structural and Kinetic Approach to Plasma Membrane Functions" held in Grignon/France on September 6-9, 1976. The meeting was intended as a discussion forum for physicists, physico-chemists, biochemists, bio- logists, and medical scientists, in an attempt to find as much "con- tact-surface" as possible. The Invited Lectures cover a broad spectrum of membrane preoccupations. The complexity of the topics, the variety of the techniques used, and above all the wide scope of the research work reported constitute an up-to-date presentation of the state-of- the-art in a number of important areas of membranology. Our thanks are due to all those who, with their contributions, helped make this book. In the first place we wish to thank the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur F6rderung der Wissenschaften e.V. and the Centre National de la Re- cherche Scientifique who, by their generous support made this meeting possible. Special thanks are due to Drs. B. Boman (Grignon/France), and Alice Reimann (Mulheim) for their help in the final preparation of the con- ference manuscript. Last but not least our thanks go to Springer-Verlag for their friendly cooperation in producing this book under excellent conditions.