I would like to thank Professor Falko Skrabal for giving me the opportunity to
work on this thesis and his neverending encouragements during the course of
this work. His affection for the human 
adrenoceptor was a steady
impetus.
My deepest appreciation and thanks especially to Dr. Peter Kotanko for his invaluable time, help, advice and support. Many enlightening talks on the work in progress and the pros and cons of different techniques kept this study running successfully. His continuous support in all the years made this work what it is today.
To Dr. Otmar Höglinger for attracting my interests to the human
-adrenergic receptor in the first place and providing preliminary
data on the receptor.
To Dr. Angelika Reimann-Weber and Dr. Jutta Horwath for their infinite support
on cell culture work and measurement of -adrenoceptor densities as well as
for their help on sequencing the receptor gene.
To Associate Professor Rudolf Zechner for helping hints and for his vast knowledge of molecular biology.
To Professor Gerhard Kostner for making available most of the used apparatus and all the people of the department of molecular biology of the Institute of Medical Biochemistry for their patience in sharing these instruments.
To Dr. Gerhard Höfler and the Department of Pathology for synthesizing the used oligonucleotide primers.
To the Krankenhaus der Barmherzigen Brüder for making instruments and working space available for the mutation scanning work.
To Professor Thomas Kenner and the Institute of Physiology for giving me the opportunity to work in his department.
To Dr. Peter Kotanko for reviewing and Dr. Regina Grube for proof-reading this thesis.
And lastly, to everyone in the Institute of Physiology for making my time there enjoyable and even diverting.
This study was supported by the Austrian Fond zur Förderung der
wissenschaftlichen Forschung, grant S4612.