Customer Reviews

Biological Physics of the Developing Embryo

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The book by Forgacs and Newman on one hand introduces important biological concepts for physicists with interest in development, covering properties of isolated cells and principles of their regulation, the interaction between cells and cell and their environment, the formation of tissues by morphogenesis, principles underlying organogenesis, and evolutionary aspects important in development.
On the other hand the book also presents the complex interplay of physical processes under genetic control during development. It introduces fundamental physical concepts from point and continuum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics (including critical phenomena), dynamical systems theory and reaction-diffusion systems. A major strength of the book is that physics is introduced through fundamental biological processes, thus using a framework familiar to biologists (and not the other way around, as in most texts on biophysics). The selection of examples captures many stages and processes during development.
The model description does not stop at the level of purely qualitative text description but includes the basic equations and their analysis, although this is done at an elementary level, requiring minimal knowledge of calculus (and the more complicated concepts are discussed in special "Boxes"). In this way the book also contains a short course in mathematical model formulation written for biologists. It does not aim at replacing existing books on developmental biology or biophysics but fits into the gap between both. It builds an interface between physicists and biologists in embryonic development and thereby should facilitate the reading of the more specialized books on developmental biology by physicists as well as the better understanding of physical principles and mathematical models and the role these play in biological systems, by biologists.

While the course of embryological development is extremely complex, many of the component processes that go into shaping an embryo are strongly reminiscent of simpler physical phenomena which occur in nonliving materials. Some of these analogies are exact, the same physics applies in both cases. However, often the analogy is inexact or even misleading. Thus, while physical analogies can be extremely useful in understanding development, they also need to be approached with caution. Until now, no book-length overview has reviewed the many successes and pitfalls of a biological-physics approach to development and the material available in technical articles has been dispersed and often written in a technical jargon inaccessible to its target audience. Biological Physics of the Developing Embryo, fills this niche in a style that is easily comprehensible by advanced undergraduate biologists and physicists (and assumes minimal background on either side), while containing enough material that even senior researchers in development will learn a great deal. I've been working in the area for 15 years and found many ideas and references that were both new and valuable. The biological illustrations and examples are well chosen and cover almost every aspect of development in a clear, logical sequence. The consistent philosophy and approach of the two writers, one a physicist and bioengineer and the other a developmental biologist, helps organize an apparently heterogeneous collection of models and developmental mechanisms into a coherent story.

Because of its novelty and breadth, the book contains a number of minor errors, which will doubtless be corrected in a future edition. Overall, this is a path-breaking book, which I am recommending to all of my own students and to any colleagues interested in the question "What does physics have to say about development?"

"Biological Physics of the Developing Embryo" is a remarkable causal description of embryonic development as controlled by the interplay of physical and biomolecular processes. Based on their expertise in both theory and experiment (Forgacs is a condensed matter physicist and Newman was trained in physical chemistry, and each currently directs a program in cell and tissue biology), the authors present an engaging and original view of cell-cell interactions and multicellular morphogenesis and pattern formation. They offer a paradigm within which spatiotemporal cell behavior is explained by the concerted action of "generic" physical principles and specific genetic factors. Reading the book is made easy for both the physical and life scientist by the logic of its presentation: early development is presented according to the major stages familiar to the biologist in a clear fashion that also provides a short introduction to each event or process (cleavage, differentiation, gastrulation, segmentation, several kinds of organogenesis, fertilization) for the physicist. The physical modeling of each developmental episode is then discussed, making a smooth transition that is not overwhelming for the biologist. Each chapter ends with a short "perspective" which epitomizes the main conceptual lessons of the chapter resulting from the synthesis of experimental facts and relevant physical models. Books of this kind are rare, although badly needed, due to the large accumulation of facts. Not to be lost in the sea of data, an atheoretical descriptive analysis is no longer an option. Experimental results must be supplemented by systematic modeling for useful interpretations to emerge. The book by Forgacs and Newman teaches us how to accomplish this.

Great introduction to the field as it isn't too math-heavy. Many good qualitative explanations with some math for reinforcement.

First off, this review might be biased. I know the author (GF), took his class, this was the recommended text, and it was a very very fun class.

My background is in mechanical engineering with lots of computational physics/modeling thrown in. I was beginning to get interested in learning how biological models are constructed and in getting a top-down perspective of the state of art now. That was my approach while tackling this text.

The book assumes the reader's familiarity with elementary concepts related to statistical physics, mechanics, geometrical intuition and familiarity with differential equations. The level of background assumed would be on par with what most sophomore physics or senior-level engineering students would possess. Unfamiliar concepts do not generally require more background than what Wikipedia can provide.

The text is fairly lucid; you might catch a grammatical or spelling error sometimes but you probably won't get caught up on that; most errors are not semantic in nature and rereading the phrases usually makes the intention of the author clear.

The figures are fabulous, and extremely helpful. There is probably no section that you won't be able to understand if you take the time to look up the references (some are quite easy to obtain online if you belong to an academic institution).

This book is truly written by physicists for the physicists/engineers and does not at any moment assume that you know more biology than about the human reproductive processes.

On the flip side, this book DOES NOT, and neither at any point intend to, cover the whole spectrum of biology and its physical modeling. It chooses to focus on the developing embryo and physical models of the developmental processes alone!

The above point is important because I was not interested in 'modeling cellular developmental processes'. I just wanted a quick primer, an introduction to learn sufficient biology to start reading papers written by biologists for the biologists. However if one finishes reading this text, they can possibly learn more than they might from opening a standard biology undergrad level text (At least, I did).

I do not possess enough information about other similar texts, so I cannot really compare this book with other books of a similar scope.

(If you belong to GF's institution and are not sure about the course and the course load it imposes, buy the book and take the class. GF is one of the nicest people whose class to be in and the course work is extremely flexible.)

Best wishes

Sid