molecular biology books

	BRS Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Flash Cards, Revised (Board Review Series)
	By: Todd A Swanson, Sandra I Kim, Michael Myers ISBN: 0781779022 Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Release Date: 01 January, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 559294	These flash cards do NOT help (in my opinion) students in molecular biology or biochemistry courses. So I was disappointed here. <br /> <br />USMLE stands for United States MEDICAL Licensing Exam. THESE ARE MEDICAL FLASH CARDS!!! They deal with disorders and diseases related to molecular biology and biochemistry. <br /> <br />I did not like the cards: they are not what I wanted. But I didn't pay attention to the description: I can't fault the product for my misunderstanding. I believe that if someone is studying for a medical (USMLE or other) exam dealing with molecular biology and biochemistry that these cards would probably be helpful: hence, I rated them a 4.
	Biochemical Pathways: An Atlas of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
	By: Gerhard Michal ISBN: 0471331309 Publisher: Wiley-Spektrum Release Date: 14 December, 1998 Bioscience book rank: 452162	This is by far the best written and illustrated book for pathways I have ever seen. If I was teaching a course, it would be absolutely required. Comprehensive references of bochemical pathways are not common, especially with well described cofactors, modulators, and interactions with disparate pathways. This book could provide such a useful reference, unfortunately, the quality of the layout is so poor as to make it very difficult to read. Poor graphic quality, exceptionally small fonts, and poor color choices render what should be a most useful reference into a visually challenging document. At the price, the book is a disappointment, although the content is great. One wishes that the editors would rerelease it after completely revising the graphics and production quality, as the content is indeed very useful. The book "Biochemical Pathways..." is the book of choice if you quickly need information on a particular biochemical reaction, substrate or enzyme and serves well as an excellent reference guide. It is a comprehensive book version of the well-known Boehringer Mannheim wallchart "Biochemical Pathways" that can surely be found in almost every laboratory on the world. The book is color-coded and in addition to the enormous biochemical wallchart data gives a large body of overview information about fundamental aspects concerning enzyme structure, viruses and even the immune system.
	Statistical Methods in Molecular Evolution (Statistics for Biology and Health)
	By: Rasmus Nielsen ISBN: 0387223339 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 21 April, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 348057	For those biologist and mathematicians willing to expand their knowledge in Molecular Evolution, this book is the right source. Chapters were written by leading researchers in their fields and are divided in sections from basic concepts to more advanced methods of molecular analysis. Language is clear, topics well organized. I recommend this book to any grad student, post doc or researcher interested in clear, informative reviews in several areas of Molecular Evolution.
	Hematopoietic Stem Cell Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology)
	By: Kevin D. Bunting ISBN: 158829868X Publisher: Humana Press Release Date: 31 January, 2008 Bioscience book rank: 766879
	Immunological Bioinformatics (Computational Molecular Biology)
	By: Ole Lund, Morten Nielsen, Claus Lundegaard, Can Kesmir, Søren Brunak ISBN: 0262122804 Publisher: The MIT Press Release Date: 01 September, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 709467	The huge majority of bioinformatics (BI) books seem to treat the topic as an end in itself. I have to admit, there is a lot to enjoy in the algorithms people have developed and in clever implementations. Often, though, the calculations appear to be fine art, to enjoy in abstract, or for creating point solutions to isolated problems. <br /> <br />This book breaks the mold. It addresses every aspect of immunology, using BI as the tool and as the unifying language for discussing immunology's many aspects. The content gets off to a slow start, starting with two chapters describing the topic and its importance. The next three chapters summarize a few of the basic algorithms: alignment and multiple alignment, motif-finding, Gibbs sampling, clustering, and neural networks. The discussion is competent, and the authors' handling of neural nets stands out from the crowd of BI books. Still, the pace is too brisk and the range of topics is too narrow to recommend this book as a general BI text. <br /> <br />It's not one, and never meant to be. That section just reminds the knowledgable reader of the mathematical tools and BI terms to be used in the remaining nine chapters. Here's where an immunology background will help a lot. I know, because I lack one. Still, the discussion holds to a level that a determined reader with a general bio and BI background can follow. Even at my barely-following level, it's exciting stuff. <br /> <br />At this writing, the 2005 H5N1 bird flu is all over the front pages, so medical response to emerging viruses is on people's minds. This book explores the whole range of issues in immunological response to the threat: identifying specific viral features that stand out as vaccine targets, understanding the immunological mechanisms that need to be engaged, evolution of the pathogens to emerging human resistance, and the ways that human variation affects the decisions in medicine and public policy. <br /> <br />That last surprised me, but makes perfect sense. Different human populations have slightly different sets of alleles for immunological response. It's one of the reasons that humanity does so well in a world of ever-changing antigenic threats. As a species, we have so many possible responses to any challenge that someone somewhere is bound to be able to survive almost any pathogen around. The range of immune-response alleles, their different sensitivities and combinations, and their distributions in different gene pools helps decide how a vaccine must be crafted. If the vaccine antigen generally triggers a good response in African Americans but not East Asians, it answers only part of the question. <br /> <br />This is the first text I know that really shows BI at work in clinically important ways. It's a guided tour of the world of immunological attacks and responses, measured using BI tools - not just pathogens, but allergens, autoimmune triggers, and even possible cancer treatment. Beginners will have a rough time following the discussion, but this is a book for people deep in their specialty. It gave me a good idea of what questions are asked, and why, and how BI answers them. I look forward to seeing an immunological researcher's review of this text - from the pure BI stand point, it's narrow, but shows the versatility of the tools it chooses. <br /> <br />//wiredweird
	The Neuron: Cell and Molecular Biology
	By: Irwin B. Levitan, Leonard K. Kaczmarek ISBN: 0195145232 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 15 December, 2001 Bioscience book rank: 236705	This is one of the few molecular neurobiology textbooks available to the serious student. Overall, it is a very well written text, up to date, and quite detailed. <p>There is one weird quality about the book, however: the authors have not directly referenced statements in the book, as you would expect to find in any good advanced textbook in a scholarly field. They have instead written a bibliography at the very end, consisting of "Recommended Reading" and "References" for each chapter. I am unsure what criteria they used to differentiate the two.<p>Other than this minor point however, it's a first rate buy. The authors deserve several pats on their backs. The molecular biology of the neuron is considered, from its electrical properties, synapses, differentiation, axon pathfinding, to chapters concluding with behavior and memory. Well written and includes easy to follow schematic diagrams, this reference is suitable for the motivated general reader. "The Neuron" was a fantastic book to read. It served as a perfect mesh between a textbook and a novel. The book was written in plain english so anyone could enjoy it. The concepts discussed ranged from elementary to advanced which provided a nice progression to more complicated things. This book is a must read for anyone interested in neuroscience.
	Molecular Biology of Aging (Cold Spring Harbor Monograph)
	By: Leonard P. Guarente, Linda Partridge, Douglas C., Ph.D. Wallace ISBN: 0879698241 Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Release Date: 30 October, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 754444
	Phage And the Origins of Molecular Biology, The Centennial Edition
	By: John Cairns, Gunther S. Stent, James D. Watson ISBN: 0879698004 Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Release Date: 01 October, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 152456
	BSCS Biology: A Molecular Approach, Student Edition
	By: McGraw-Hill ISBN: 0078664276 Publisher: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill Release Date: 19 November, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 491135
	GRE Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology (REA) - The Very Best Test Prep (Test Preps)
	By: Thomas E. Smith, Marguerite Wilton Coomes ISBN: 0738600725 Publisher: Research & Education Association Release Date: 12 June, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 245650	Like others who have reviewed this book, I bought it because it's the only one out there. The other books are just practice tests. This book alone did not adequately prepare me for the biochem subject test. What it did do is provide a guideline to things I needed to review in depth using my own text books from college. Also, the practice test in the back of the books was far easier than the practice tests from the GRE website, which were more in line with the real test. I would not purchase it again. Rather, just use the info provided by the GRE website to guide you and rely on your text books and lecture notes for review. This book provides a very, very basic review of the major concepts of biochem, cell biology, and molecular biology (i.e. genetics). I found this review helpful, but the detailed questions of the actual exam require a much more detailed review. This prep was also chaulk-full of typos, mistakes, improperly tagged vocab words, and incorrectly drawn chemical structures (texas carbons and nitrogens, double bonds to hydrogen atoms, etc.) that required me to look up the actual structure or correct definition. The practice exams were also a bit easier than the actual exam was, so an accurate gauge of how well you are doing cannot be obtained with this test prep. If all you need is a brief review before your subject exam, then this will probably work, otherwise review your old corsework and notes. This book is rife with errors and mistakes, an in critical ways. For example, one question, on a fairly basic topic, asked what %age guanines are in a DNA molecule (double-stranded) that contains 20% thymines and 30% purines. Given that guanine is a purine, and adenine is a purine, this implies that the breakdown is as follows: 20% A, 20% T, 10% G, 40% C. This is clearly impossible, as that would not be a stable molecule. <br /> <br />Other idiotic errors abound, but I provide that as the absolutely worst examples. This book leaves me with absolutely no idea how well I will do on the GRE, and has basically been a useless study aid. I find myself correcting it far more often than it corrects me.