Customer Reviews

Bioinformatics: Sequence, Structure and Databanks: A Practical Approach

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The title of this collection of texts is slightly misleading because the book is entirely devoted to proteins. It does not cover either DNA sequence analysis or nucleic acid structure prediction. Nor does it expose methods of "genome informatics" such as computer-assisted genome annotation or function-associated genome segmenting. Moreover the problematics of molecular evolution is covered only as much as protein phylogeny and homology is discussed. There is virtually no mention of methods for studying genome evolution.

Despite the above negatives the book provides a remarkable survey and tutorial of protein sequence and structure analysis. The editors introduction (Higgins and Taylor) is brief, precise and to the point. Chapter 1 (Jones and Hadley) and Chapter 2 (Johnson and Lehtonen) constitute a tutorial of protein structure analysis. Both chapters are likely to be informative for the beginners and enjoyable by the experts. Chapter 6 (Heringa) and Chapter 8 (Yona and Brenner) are real masterpieces and should be read by all practitioners of bioinformatics as well as by all individuals who want to learn methods of sequence analysis. These two chapters and the editor's introduction make the entire book a valuable desk reference for practitioners and a candidate textbook for students. Just to be completely fair I need to say that Chapter 5 (Henikoff and Henikoff) is potentially confusing and poorly written. The same - although to a lesser degree - applies to Chapter 9 (Harper.)

In summary: Higgins and Taylor have assembled a superb collection of short texts in protein sequence and structure analysis. Practitioners of both bioinformatics and protein biochemistry should use this book as a desk reference. Those who want to learn about bioinformatics will certainly benefit from reading selected chapters of this book as well. The book would not be harmed if it failed to contain confusing and poorly written Chapter 5 (Henikoff and Henikoff) and Chapter 9 (Harper.)

Gives a great overview of bioinformatic techniques in "sequence analysis and searching" and "protein structure analysis and prediction." Then it gives an overview of gene databases online as do all other bioinformatics books. The best part about it is that it spends 70% talking about new biology techniques which greatly helps a computer scientist like me to get into the field. Recommended.