Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics [Paperback]

Jonathan Pevsner (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0470085851 | ISBN-13: 978-0470085851 | Publication Date: May 4, 2009 | Edition: 2

The bestselling introduction to bioinformatics and functional genomics—now in an updated edition

Widely received in its previous edition, Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics offers the most broad-based introduction to this explosive new discipline. Now in a thoroughly updated and expanded Second Edition, it continues to be the go-to source for students and professionals involved in biomedical research.

This edition provides up-to-the-minute coverage of the fields of bioinformatics and genomics. Features new to this edition include:

• Several fundamentally important proteins, such as globins, histones, insulin, and albumins, are included to better show how to apply bioinformatics tools to basic biological questions.
• A completely updated companion web site, which will be updated as new information becomes available - visit www.wiley.com/go/pevsnerbioinformatics
• Descriptions of genome sequencing projects spanning the tree of life.
• A stronger focus on how bioinformatics tools are used to understand human disease.

The book is complemented by lavish illustrations and more than 500 figures and tables—fifty of which are entirely new to this edition. Each chapter includes a Problem Set, Pitfalls, Boxes explaining key techniques and mathematics/statistics principles, Summary, Recommended Reading, and a list of freely available software. Readers may visit a related Web page for supplemental information at www.wiley.com/go/pevsnerbioinformatics.

Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, Second Edition serves as an excellent single-source textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate-level courses in the biological sciences and computer sciences. It is also an indispensable resource for biologists in a broad variety of disciplines who use the tools of bioinformatics and genomics to study particular research problems; bioinformaticists and computer scientists who develop computer algorithms and databases; and medical researchers and clinicians who want to understand the genomic basis of viral, bacterial, parasitic, or other diseases.

Praise for the first edition:

"...ideal both for biologists who want to master the application of bioinformatics to real-world problems and for computer scientists who need to understand the biological questions that motivate algorithms." Quarterly Review of Biology

"… an excellent textbook for graduate students and upper level undergraduate students." Annals of Biomedical Engineering

"…highly recommended for academic and medical libraries, and for researchers as an introduction and reference…" E-Streams

Editorial Reviews

Review

"…provides non-trivial tools and biological motivations to learn bioinformatics." (Journal of Statistical Computation & Simulation, January 2005)

"...ideal both for biologists who want to master the application of bioinformatics to real-world problems and for computer scientists who need to understand the biological questions that motivate algorithms." (Quarterly Review of Biology, March-May 2005)

"…this appears to be an excellent textbook for graduate students and upper level undergraduate students." (Annals of Biomedical Engineering, July 2004, 32, 7)

"…highly recommended for academic and medical libraries, and for researchers as an introduction and reference…" (E-Streams, Vol. 7, No. 4)

“...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) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"I was particularly impressed by the comprehensible and comprehensive treatment of BLAST - the best that I have seen. One is guided from choosing the appropriate type of BLAST program, database and search parameters through to refining and analysing the significance of the search results--all illustrated with clear examples."
--David P. Leader, University of Glasgow

"I would not hesitate for a moment to propose Jonathan Pevsner’s new book as a standard course for biologists who need a serious, practical knowledge of modern bioinformatics. Dr. Pevsner does a masterful job at presenting virtually every major topic in bioinformatics and computational genomics, from the basics of sequence analysis, to microarray data classification, accurately and at a considerable level of detail but without any complex mathematics. In addition to being an extremely useful textbook, Pevsner’s book is a very nice read, due in large part, to carefully constructed questions and suggestions for discussion, and wonderful historical vignettes. In short, a great bioinformatics book for biologists!"
--Eugene V. Koonin, Ph.D., National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 992 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 2 edition (May 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470085851
• ISBN-13: 978-0470085851
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #33,634 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Bioinformatics
  • #24 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Modeling & Simulation
  • #33 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Molecular Biology

More About the Author

Jonathan Pevsner received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at Johns Hopkins (1989), and pursued postdoctoral training at Stanford University (1989-1995) in the Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. He joined the faculty of the Department of Neurology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore where he is currently an Associate Professor. His primary faculty appointment is in the Dept. of Neuroscience in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Pevsner began teaching courses in bioinformatics and genomics at Johns Hopkins in 2000, and he won Teacher of the Year awards twice in the School of Medicine (2001, 2006), once at the Homewood campus MLA program (2009), and he was given the Professor's Award for Excellence in Teaching (2003). In 2003 John Wiley & Sons published the first edition of Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, and the second edition was published in 2009.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for bioinformatics from a user's perspective, March 9, 2004

By 

Edwin R. Addison (Wilmington, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics (Paperback)

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.

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.

The book is in stark contrast to the other Pevser (that is Pevzner) who wrote a bioinformatics book that surveyed algorithm theory underlying bioinformatics.

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.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Learning Text, Well Written, August 24, 2010

By 

Shutterbug (Coeur d'Alene, ID USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics (Paperback)

I spent a lot of time looking for a bioinformatics text book that focuses on sequence analysis for a course I'm teaching. I decided that Mount's book was too wordy and unclear, and while I liked Orengo's book quite a bit, it required a good amount of knowledge up-front to follow it. Pevsner's book is laid out in a logical fashion and is designed to teach the molecular biology types the underlying principles of bioinformatics. It discusses pairwise alignments, substitution matrices, multiple sequence alignments, profiles, position-specific scoring matrices and phylogenetic trees with a good amount of detail. There's also a chapter on microarray analysis, but to get into that deeply I recommend Draghici's book.
The 2nd half of the book discusses the genome organization and evolution of a variety of organisms (viruses, bacteria, eukaryotes, human), and was great for bringing me up to date on these topics.
I strongly recommend this as a textbook for undergraduate or graduate students learning bioinformatics.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book!!!, January 5, 2011

By 

FirZ - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics (Paperback)

This book is great and give me a lot of information in bioinformatics and genomic tools. Since I am new in bioinformatics and genomics, I need a basic understanding as well as update in these areas and this book gave those to me.
In addition, the language using in this book is not difficult to understand, especially for a beginner (and those ones whose not use English as their main language).
I think you should try to read this book!! :)