Bioinformatics for Systems Biology [Hardcover]

Stephen Krawetz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1934115029 | ISBN-13: 978-1934115022 | Edition: 2nd ed.

The biological sciences are now in the midst of a true life sciences revolution akin to what physics experienced just after the turn of the last century. We are now in a phase of unparalleled growth that is reflected by the amount of data generated from each experiment. At the time of this writing, the rate of data acquisition was approaching 2 terabytes over the course of 5 days with first pass analysis proceeding over the following 2-3 week period. This fundamental shift has provided unprecedented opportunities that for the first time afford us the ability, i.e., means, breadth, and depth of data, to truly address human biology at the systems level. This wealth of information from seemingly disparate datasets and its integration is being realized through bioinformatics. It is with this philosophy that the text Bioinformatics for Systems Biology was born. This revolution has spawned true personalized medicine that encompasses diagnostics and treatment through to cure. For the physical and computer scientist, this text provides an introduction to the basic biological principles governing a cell. This quickly moves from the fundamentals to exploring the underlying genetic processes. While providing a rudimentary and necessary overview for the life scientist, the physical and computer scientist will be apprised of various nuances within the field reflecting the reality of “wet-bench” science. For those in the life sciences, it is rapidly becoming appreciated that we are progressing from examining our favorite “pet” gene to the system. Statistics is now an essential component to understand the vast datasets and this is emphasized throughout the text. The majority of the text is devoted to the common ground that these groups share. It provides rich examples of tools, databases, and strategies to mine the databases to reveal novel insights. A host of examples of parsing the data into a series of overlays that use various presentation systems are reviewed. The goal is to provide a representation most comfortable to the user to enable the user to thoroughly explore the data. The text concludes with examples of how the systems information is used to inform personalized medicine in a true “bench to bedside” manner. Bioinformatics for Systems Biology bridges and unifies many disciplines. It presents the life scientist, computational biologist, and mathematician with a common framework. Only by linking the groups together may the true life sciences revolution move forward in the mostly uncharted and emerging field of Systems Biology.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The biological sciences are now in the midst of a true life sciences revolution akin to what physics experienced just after the turn of the last century. We are now in a phase of unparalleled growth that is reflected by the amount of data generated from each experiment. At the time of this writing, the rate of data acquisition was approaching 2 terabytes over the course of 5 days with first pass analysis proceeding over the following 2-3 week period. This fundamental shift has provided unprecedented opportunities that for the first time afford us the ability, i.e., means, breadth, and depth of data, to truly address human biology at the systems level. This wealth of information from seemingly disparate datasets and its integration is being realized through bioinformatics. It is with this philosophy that the text Bioinformatics for Systems Biology was born. This revolution has spawned true personalized medicine that encompasses diagnostics and treatment through to cure. For the physical and computer scientist, this text provides an introduction to the basic biological principles governing a cell. This quickly moves from the fundamentals to exploring the underlying genetic processes. While providing a rudimentary and necessary overview for the life scientist, the physical and computer scientist will be apprised of various nuances within the field reflecting the reality of "wet-bench" science. For those in the life sciences, it I rapidly becoming appreciated that we now progressing from examining our favorite "pet" gene to the system. Statistics is now an essential component to understand the vast datasets and this is emphasized throughout the text. The majority of the text is devoted to the common ground that these groups share. It provides rich examples of tools, databases, and strategies to mine the databases to reveal novel insights. A host of examples of parsing the data into a series of overlays that use various presentation systems are reviewed. The goal is to provide a representation most comfortable to the user to enable the user to thoroughly explore the data. The text concludes with examples of how the systems information is used to inform personalized medicine in a true "bench to bedside" manner. Bioinformatics for Systems Biology bridges and unifies many disciplines. It presents the life scientist, computational biologist, and mathematician with a common framework. Only by linking the groups together may the true life sciences revolution move forward in the mostly uncharted and emerging field of Systems Biology.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 750 pages
• Publisher: Humana Press; 2nd ed. edition (February 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934115029
• ISBN-13: 978-1934115022
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,119,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Less Systems Biology Than I Had Hoped, August 23, 2009

By 

Samuel Eells (Providence, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bioinformatics for Systems Biology (Hardcover)

Systems Biology is "a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on the systematic study of complex interactions in biological systems, thus using a new perspective (holism instead of reduction) to study them." (Wikipedia) And by studying complex interactions, one can elucidate why the combination of parts gives rise to emergent properties.

This book addresses a lot of the issues in bioinformatics, but only about 10% seems to be something that might go beyond bioinformatics. The problem is that a lot of the material is focused on the complex interactions, which is good, but the material doesn't seem to bridge to a holistic perspective of biological systems.

I give low marks because the title misled me to think that 40-60% would be about deriving emergent properties, etc., or systems biology proper. I give more than 1 star because the book has some potentially useful bioinformatics material. It might be better titled as The Bioinformatics Foundations of Systems Biology. With that title, I would have given it higher marks.

This book might be useful as a supplemental text in an introductory bioinformatics course, but not as the main text, because there should be a better one that would explicitly say "Introduction" in the title.