Bioinformatics for Dummies (Paperback)

by Jean-Michel Claverie (Author), Cedric Notredame (Author) "It looks like biologists are colonizing the dictionary with all these bio words: we have bio-chemistry, bio-metrics, bio-physics, bio-technology, bio-hazards, and even bio-terrorism..." (more)
Key Phrases: bootstrap alignment, paste your sequence, human parvalbumin, Survival Guide, Neighbor Joining, Quick Search (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
“…buy soon and read fast!…” (Spixiana, July 2004)

"...will be of enormous practical assistance to anyone getting to grips with bioinformatics tools in the course of their research..." (Briefings in Bioinformatics, June 2003)

Product Description
  Bioinformatics – the process of searching biological databases, comparing sequences, examining protein structures, and researching biological questions with a computer – is one of the marvels of modern technology that can save you months of lab work. And the most amazing part is that, if you know how, you can use highly sophisticated programs over the Internet without paying a dime and sometimes, without installing anything new on your own computer. All you need to know is how to use these technological miracles.

That’s where Bioinformatics For Dummies comes in. If you want to know what bioinformatics is all about and how to use it, without wading through pages of computer gibberish or taking a course full of theory, this book has the answers in plain English.  You’ll find out how to

• Use Internet resources
• Understand bioinformatics jargon
• Research biological databases
• Locate the sequences you need
• Perform specific tasks, step by step

Written by two experts who helped develop the science, Bioinformatics For Dummies is all about getting things done. If you’re just getting your feet wet, start at the beginning with a quick review of those necessary parts of microbiology and an overview of the tools available. If you already know what you want to do, you can go directly to a chapter that shows you how. Get the lowdown on

• Researching and analyzing DNA and protein sequences
• Gathering information from all published sources
• Searching databases for similar sequences and acquiring information about gene functions through sequence comparisons
• Producing and editing multiple sequence comparisons for presentation
• Predicting protein structures and RNA structures
• Doing phylogenetic analysis

With an Internet connection and Bioinformatics For Dummies, you’ll discover how to peruse databases that contain virtually everything known about human biology. It’s like having access to the world’s largest lab, right from your desk. This book is your lab assistant – one that never takes a day off, never argues when you ask it for help, and won’t demand a benefits package.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1st edition (January 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764516965
• ISBN-13: 978-0764516962
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #285,760 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #8 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Research
  #51 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Bioinformatics
  #58 in	Books > Science > Medicine > Special Topics > Biotechnology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars disappointing from the viewpoint of a computer scientist..., March 19, 2005

By	me "me" (here) - See all my reviews

I hold a masters degree in computer sciences (so in fact I am a biology dummy), but always had a strong interest for sciences. So I want to delve deeply into this fascinating area, but first wanted to read a book to quickly introduce me the basic concepts. With this background, I must say the book is a little bit disappointing. You can clearly see that this book is written with the biologist in mind, definitely not the computer scientist.
The biological concepts are not explained very well for a biology dummy, let me explain you why :
1. Some basic biological concepts are not explained. I wanted to have some more explanation on the basic concepts of how molecular and cell biology works. A lot of times, the autors tell you how to use some tool, but is not always clearly explained to me why, for what purpose they use the tool. For instance they explain how to find a list of related protein sequences, but for me it is not clear why biologists need to have such a list. And this is only one example, I could give much more simular examples...
2. Remember guys, I am a dummy, so please explain me the difference between a gene and a genome before using these terms. And also, I heard about chromosomes, but why do you not explain what is it exactly ?. Also, there are a lot of explanations on how to work with RNA, but please explain me more about the functional difference between RNA and DNA.
3. The explanations on how to use serveral internet tools are too wordy, they spent several pages explaining things that are so intuitively clear like "click this or that button", "use menu file, edit, copy to past your stuff to the computer clipboard"....
4. A lot of complex terms are or not explained the first time they use it ("phylogenic"). Sometimes these terms are explained further in the book, but from a didactical standpoint, you should at least give an informal definition when you first use some concepts...

Conclusion: I currently read the first hundred pages of the book and maybe I will change this review later on. But I can already tell : the first chapters might be well suited for a computer dummy, but definitely not for a biology dummy. However with some help of the internet(for instance there is an excellent explanation on how cells work at the howstuffworks website http://science.howstuffworks.com/cell.htm), I will continue to read the book further. Maybe after that I will need to change my preview...

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource for teachers too!, June 24, 2003

By	"ndrewtan" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

I have used databases before (mostly NCBI, TIGR and SWISS PROT) and yet, this book (presumably for dummies) has shown me so much more(which say a lot about me)! It is accurate and gives good step by step guide to how to perform many tasks - from how to find a gene to using the analysis tools and to exploring some of the newer features of these databases - and the areas like you have never looked into before.
It is a well-researched book and the authors are clearly knowledgeable in this area.

Even though I have been for a 4-day bioinformatics course (6 months ago), which I thought was pretty good, this book still had so much to offer. Using this book, I was easily able to substitute the proteins of my interest into their examples and generated meaningful hits.

The book also covers deeper and more advanced features of BLAST, discusses sequence alignments using several types of algorithm and even has a section on 3D structures. Towards the end of book - it features a section on working with mRNA and building phylogenetics trees - which again are excellent resources for teachers involved in teaching beginners molecular biology.

I am a teacher teaching at a Pre-unversity level. The way the book is structured also lends its material to be modified into lesson materials for training students.

It is really a great book! Worth every dollar I spent on it!

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bioinformatics for Dummies by J.M. Claverie & C. Notredame, January 14, 2004

By	Tamsen De Valoir "tvaloir" (Alvin, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Bioinformatics for Dummies" is an excellent resource. It is clear, easy to read, well organized and illustrated. I was particularly pleased by the colloquial tone of the writing: in addition to being informative, it was fun to read!

As a scientist who spends at least half of my time BLASTing, I also read it for accuracy and found it to almost error-free (any errors were in the figures). Additionally, most of the web pages were up-to-date, although as time passes the links will decay and web pages will change their look. In addition, the book contained enough in-depth content to teach me several new tricks of the trade.

Further, I believe the book had sufficient background material to educate the novice. To test this, I gave the manual to a material science chemist and he was able to understand the material, at least until he decided it was more than he wanted to know and quit reading.

This is a useful text for those who want to know more than an operational definition of bioinformatics and a must for the library of all bioinformatics users.