This volume is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor WERNER BRAUN, one of the most devoted and active members of the Editorial Board of the Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, who passed away, after suffering a heart attack, in November 1972. Dr. WERNER BRAUN was born in Berlin, Germany, on November 16,1914. During his highschool days in Berlin he did research work on problems of genetics as a young guest in the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut fur Biologie, in the department of Prof. R. GOLDSCHMIDT. I remember his colourful description of his discussions during this period, while still a teen-ager, with OTTO WAR- BURG. He studied biology and medicine at the University of G6ttingen and received a Ph.D. degree in biology in 1936. In the same year he left Nazi Germany and came to the United States first as a Guest Investigator in Genetics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and then in Berkeley, where he carried out his work in the Depart- ments of Zoology and of Veterinary Science until 1948. He was engaged during this period in the study of problems concerned with physiological genetics, bacterial variation, immunology and biochemistry.