genomics books

	As the Future Catches You: How Genomics & Other Forces Are Changing Your Life, Work, Health & Wealth
	By: Juan Enriquez ISBN: 1400047749 Publisher: Three Rivers Press Release Date: 25 October, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 61898	"As the Future Catches You" is an interesting and unique treatise on the forces driving change in today's world. The book is written in a unique style, incorporating copious graphics and charts along with varying font faces and sizes. <br /> <br />For those interested in learning about change...and the drivers of change from Juan Enriquez's perspective...this is a good read. <br /> <br />Highly recommended. I am actually amazed to realize that this book has received so many positive reviews. It is pitiable from start to end. You could perhaps excuse Henriquez' poor writting style if only the content of the book had been something to cheer for. However this is not the case. Unfortunately Henriquez' argument for how genomics will shape the future of all things, is substantiated by oversimplifications and misconceptions generated by an evident lack of scientific knowledge on the author's behalf, or alternatively, a deliberate attempt to impress the unaware reader with overambitious and melodramatic factoids. <br />... but let us just analyse some of the statements in say, for instance, the <br />"MOSQUITOES" section, right among the starting pages: <br />"Mosquitoes <br />are flying hypodermic needles. <br />They can infect you with malaria, dengue, and other <br />awful things" Well... up to here everything is sort of correct - except for the fact that mosquitoes are nothing like hypodermic needles, but that mosquito's feeding apparatus, for instance, is an extremely complicated structure, quite unlike a single syringe, but hey... what do I know? - ... still, let us excuse the imprecision and awful writing style and read a bit more: <br /> <br />"They do so by transferring a little bit of genetic code <br />through their saliva..." Really? How does that happen then? Because, during the twelve years I have been studying the genetics of tropical diseases, I never heard of a publication where this has been shown... I had the idea that it was the entire microorganism (virus, parasite, bacteria, etc...) that was inoculated and then caused an infection, but apparently it is just a portion of its genetic code... or he is referring to the mosquito's genes? Help me, I'm confused... <br /> <br />"Into your bloodstream..." <br />"Which then reprograms part of the way your cells operate... " <br />"By changing your genetic code ever so slightly..." Oooohhhh, I'm scared... <br />"In ways that can make you very sick." Now, that's what I call an engaging writing style... <br /> <br />Unfortunately, it goes on and on for over two hundred pages... <br /> <br /> Ostensibly a pronouncement about the extraordinary impact that genetics is about to make on human civilization I found his comments and supporting data on knowledge societies versus commodity societies most enlightening. You live in a country without natural resources? LUCKY YOU! You have a much better chance to live in a democratic country with constitutional protections of individual rights. Countries devoid of natural wealth must invest in their human capital. In the knowledge economy this is more likely to create wealth. Small countries with few natural resources have the highest per capita median incomes in the world. If you live in a resource rich country you are more likely to be ruled by thugs or clowns who enrich themselves by enabling large companies with know-how and technology to extract the resource. They have no need to invest in their human capital. Poverty is the result. Enriquez marshals impressive data to support this claim. My optimism about the future possibilities of the Jewish people and Israel (in my own book "The Optimistic Jew") stems to great degree from Enriquez's book. His observation that now lone individuals and single zip codes can create greater wealth than entire countries enabled me to envisage Israel becoming the richest country in the world in per capita, median income by 2030. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
	Essential Genetics: A Genomic Perspective
	By: Daniel L. Hartl, Elizabeth W. Jones ISBN: 0763735272 Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Publishers Release Date: 01 August, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 218602	I bought this book online because I needed it for my Genetics class in the spring semester. I'm happy with Amazon for shipping it on time; the Prime membership is really worth it. <br />The book itself is perfect for anyone trying to understand genetics for the first time. I have taken genetics classes before, and this book really helped me refresh my memory. It is suitable for the person who wishes to teach him/herself, and it is great for the person wishing to specialize in this area. <br />If you're considering buying the book, get it. It's worth every penny. Great diagrams and broken down descriptions. It was a great help for my upper division genetics class! I couldn't have passed without it! As an another student at Harvard, i found this book very unclear at explaning many important concepts in genetics, such as Holliday structure. The authors of this book fail to present approropriate and clear explanations for the conclusions that they make. Also, materials in chapters tend to be seemed unrelated... <p>Prof Hartl is an entertaining in his lectures but not clear in his book.
	Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomics: A Short Course
	By: James D. Watson, Jan A. Witkowski, Richard M. Myers, Amy A. Caudy ISBN: 0716728664 Publisher: W. H. Freeman Release Date: 08 December, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 294437	This book is the most condensed, accessible discussion of genetic manipulation techniques and methods around. Armed with this, one can move on and understand any other text in the area.
	Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics
	By: Jonathan Pevsner ISBN: 0471210048 Publisher: Wiley-Liss Release Date: 04 November, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 264481	"...an intriguing work targeted toward biologists wanting to solve problems...provides a compendium of many biological insights and breakthroughs and will be a useful resource...highly recommended." (Choice, Vol. 41, No. 7, March 2004) Unlike the previous review, I found the user perspective, rather than the mathematical perspective refreshing. I have been teaching bioinformatics to CS students for several years and all too often the students are great at algorithms and theory but do not understand the user they are designing for. This book teaches just that -- how to use bioinformatics from a user or researcher's viewpoint. Medical students and biologists will find it useful for direct applicability to their work, but I also reccomend it for bioinformatics students who need to complement their theoretical background with practical use. All too often, CS students of bioinformatics can design a great database with powerful access tools, but with a horrible interface because they don't have this perspective.<p>Now, for the book itself. It is easy to read and covers all aspects of bioinformatics from a sequence perspective (information retrieval, BLAST, gene expression and microarrays, proteomics and protein bioinformatics, genomes and disease). The coverage of databases and URLs is thourough and the text is easy to read, yet useful. The book is comprehensive with one area seemingly missing -- it would have been useful to include a chapter on systems biology and/or cellular modeling and the tools available (i.e. E-Cell). The book is especially useful to a researcher who is trying to explore all aspects of a particular gene, protein, disease, or pathway using bioinformatics tools. <p>The book is in stark contrast to the other Pevser (that is Pevzner) who wrote a bioinformatics book that surveyed algorithm theory underlying bioinformatics. <p>This book is also useful for less technical professionals in industry -- the managers, lawyers and venture capitalists that pervade the biotech landscape all need to communicate effectively and they can surely learn that here, provided they have some background in cell biology first. A genious attempt to present bioinformatics as if it is a discipline without any computational content. Perfect for students who lost any hope to understand what is the engine driving bioinformatics tools but want simply to memorize how to use them instead. Must be a very comfortable reading for biologists but is as exciting as a long carefully designed restaurant menu for a mathematician. If the author wants to raise a new generation of biologists with this book then biology and real bioinformatics will be divorced forever.
	Discovering Genomics, Proteomics and Bioinformatics (2nd Edition) (The Genetics Place Series)
	By: A. Malcolm Campbell, Laurie J. Heyer ISBN: 0805382194 Publisher: Benjamin Cummings Release Date: 12 March, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 129287	This book follows a convoluted path to describe basic methodologies that could be taught in a much more straightforward manner. The authors get so mired down in the biology of specific applications of bioinformatic tools that the tool itself falls into the background. The poor layout of the book even makes it difficult to read. The main text of the book is interspersed with examples, "Math Minutes" and other text which are not properly set off from the main text. <br /> <br />The web links associated with the book are outdated and do not appear to be updated by the publisher to keep up with changes. If a web site is associated with a book, it should at the very least keep up with changes. In a quickly changing field such as bioinformatics these updates are absolutely critical. <br /> <br />The book is also overpriced given the low quality content and paperback binding. The figures are subpar with only purple and gray coloring. I would expect at least a few full color figures for a book at this price point. <br /> <br />Overall I would say that this book is not a useful tool for teaching bioinformatics or genomics. This was a great textbook. The website was very helpful and I liked how the author did not waste paper/printing/money on images and half of the information was on the web. It was nice not carrying around a heavy text all semester, even if half my reading/work was done in front of a computer. A lot of information packed into this book. One sentence sometimes requires a lot of knowledge (thank goodness for my professor who explained it all). I would have to say, without a lecture, I would walk away from this text thinking I knew something but not knowing much at all. For an amature like me, I definitely need a lecture to go along with this text. Although some mistakes were found, a lot less than the first edition (so I'm told). This book represents a breakthrough in textbook design. It starts with a 'case study' for a child visiting you the physician. You get the basic symptoms from the mother, then you are sent to the web to go attempt to establish a diagnosis. And you are not sent to some private web site, but to the Online Mendelian Inheitance in Man (OMIN) database of human diseases and genes, and to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Immediately the student is exposed to a wealth of information far beyond what any book could provide. It's rare that you see a textbook that attempts to take the student into the real world. <br /> <br />Intermixed with the case studies is textual materials that provide the student with the basic background that they need. In addition there are almost random Math Minutes and Discovery Questions that direct the student into further depth of understanding. <br /> <br />If you are planning to teach this kind of class, you owe it to yourself to at least investigate this book before selecting a text.
	Principles of Gene Manipulation and Genomics
	By: Sandy B. Primrose, Richard Twyman ISBN: 1405135441 Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Release Date: 17 February, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 463387	This book is written at an advanced undergraduate level, assuming a basic knowledge of molecular biology and genetics but no knowledge of recombinant DNA technology or genomics. At the same time the book is organized in such amanner that a researcher already working in this general field might be able to quickly find an area where they need refreshing or up to date information. <br /> <br />The book begins with a historical review of research into genes and how the present day technologies came about. This information has been selected so that the student will have an understanding of how today's technology has evolved. It is a short history, and does not go into the many paths that led to procedures that are no longer in use. <br /> <br />This book is now in its seventh edition with a new edition coming out every 4 to 5 years since the original publication in 1980. As such, the book is up to date as of the state of the technology about the end of 2005.
	Evolutionary Genomics and Proteomics
	By: Mark Pagel, Andrew Pomiankowski ISBN: 0878936548 Publisher: Sinauer Associates Inc.,U.S. Release Date: 10 December, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 501089
	Statistical Genomics: Linkage, Mapping, and QTL Analysis
	By: Ben Hui Liu ISBN: 0849331668 Publisher: CRC Release Date: 29 December, 1997 Bioscience book rank: 298809	There are many basic errors in statistics in this book, such as the concepts of expected value and degrees of freedom. The statistical background of the author should be very weak. From the bibliography (how many publications does the author have?) we can see whether the author is well prepared to write this kind of book. Did Dr. Ron Sederoff who wrote the foreword read the book thoroughly? If so, he should have pointed out those very obvious errors. Of course, Dr. Sederoff should not be responsible for those errors if he has no background in Statistics. I hope the author can check the book thoroughly before it goes to the fourth printing or just withdraw it from the publisher. The author of this book defines genomics as the study of whole genomes via the integration of cytology, Mendelian-quantitative-population-molecular genetics with bioinformatics and automated sequencing. It attempts to answer, the author states, such questions as to the physical and chemical requirements of genomes, the possible necessity that genes be located at certain sites to function normally, that particular DNA sequences and structures needed for gene functions, the total number of functional genes necessary for a biological system, and the homology between the DNA sequences of different species. He addresses the book to biologists interested in statistical issues in genomics, for mathematicians in genomics, and for students of genetics. <p> To satisfy these three classes of readers, she lists three different "tracks" for them consisting of a sequence of chapters recommended. Another good feature of the book is the inclusion of exercises at the end of each chapter, an absolute necessity for the understanding of this field. For those interested specifically in the efficacy of transgenic strategies in the design of viable breeds of plants and animals, this book will be helpful, for the author emphasizes in the book that the major application of genomics will be in finding optimal breeding strategies in agriculture and forestry. <p> After a brief introduction in chapter 1, the author outlines briefly Mendelian, population, quantitative, and molecular genetics in chapter 2, each presented as a separate discipline. The author never really defines what a gene "is" in the context of molecular genetics, as he does in the disciplines, but instead views it as a sequence of base pairs in the DNA strands, which has the potential of being expressed via transcription, RNA splicing, and translation, to a particular protein. Fortunately, in one of the exercises at the end of the chapter, the reader finds a connection between molecular and classical genetics by examining a trait (viewed as a simple compound) of a hypothetical plant. <p> Genomics as a discipline is introduced in chapter 3, and defined as the analysis of data from nuclear genomes, with the intent of learning about their structure, function, and evolution. Genome structure and sources of genome variation are discussed. Biological techniques in genomics are briefly discussed for interested readers. The author is careful to point out that complex traits cannot be related to the DNA sequences available currently as little is known about the molecular identity of most genes controlling these traits. Helpful diagrams are used to illustrate the important concepts, such as mating schemes, chromosome rearrangements, "natural" populations used in genomic research, RAPD, AFLP, and a diagram outlining the history of genetic markers. <p> Chapter 4 is a summary of the mathematical statistics needed in the book, but the author does give an example of the methods, dealing with mapping a gene for resistance to fusiform rust disease. <p> The statistical modeling of a single locus is carried out in chapter 5, as an example of what can be done, and as a warm-up for multiple locus models which follow later in the book. The author outlines how to detect segregation distortion using chi-square and log likelihood tests, and methods for determining sample size for marking screening using controlled crosses. The reader can get an idea of the importance of using PCR and RFLP to screen polymorphic genetic markers. A disequilibrium coefficient is defined and log likelihood methods are used to estimate it. Heterozygosity is defined in terms of allelic frequencies and estimated statistically. The author also details the use of Monte Carlo simulation to screen polymorphic markers. <p> In chapter 6, the author uses goodness of fit, likelihood ratio tests, and recombination fraction estimation to perform two-locus linkage analysis. Newton-Rhapson methods are used to solve the (non-linear) likelihood equations for obtaining maximum likelihood estimates. The author answers the question as to how large the sample size should be for detecting linkage, with the expected log likelihood ratio test statistic being the tool for the determination of this. This analysis is generalized to the more difficult case of natural populations in chapter 7. Linkage disequilibrium is then used in chapter 8 to also study two-locus models. The transmission/disequilibrium test and other tests are discussed in the light of finding markers linked to disease genes. <p> Linkage groups, defined as groups of loci inherited together according to statistical criteria, are studied in chapter 9. Locus ordering is considered and studied as a case, interestingly, of the traveling salesman problem, and some algorithms are proposed for its solution, such as seriation, simulated annealing, and branch-and-bound. But likelihood and bootstrap approaches are also discussed. <p> Multi-locus models and the important concept of map distance are considered in chapter 10. This chapter is the most interesting and helpful in the book, for it discusses in detail the relationship between multi-point map distance and physical distance. Morgan's, Haldane's, Kosambi's, and other map functions are discussed. Also, and most importantly, the quality of a genomic map is quantified, using the confidence of estimated locus order and locus distribution on the map. <p> The pooling or merging of linkage maps are considered in chapter 11, followed by the study of QTLs in chapter 12. Regression techniques are used for single-marker analysis and interval mappings are used to locate QTLs. QTL mappings for natural populations are discussed and the author considers the "statistical power" of QTL detection experiments. The question as to what QTLs really are is addressed, particularly the role of molecular biology and genomic mapping, and the limitations of QTL mapping. The author ends his discussion of QTLs by asking what would be the best approach for modeling a quantitative trait. A brief discussion of computer methods ends the book. <p> After finishing the book and noting the explosive influence of molecular biology, it is natural to ask: Will statistical methods in genomics fade away and be replaced by deterministic methods based on molecular and metabolic models? The book discuses quantitative and population genetics on the bases of molecular level. It is very useful for genetic analysis across many disciplines, including plant and animal breeding, and human genetics. It provides useful explanations of some complex biometrical concepts.
	Nutritional Genomics: Discovering the Path to Personalized Nutrition
	By: Jim Kaput, Raymond L. Rodriguez ISBN: 0471683191 Publisher: Wiley-Interscience Release Date: 05 May, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 57007
	Introduction to Computational Genomics: A Case Studies Approach
	By: Nello Cristianini, Matthew W. Hahn ISBN: 0521671914 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Release Date: 15 January, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 162645