Customer Reviews

Essentials of Stem Cell Biology

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Well balanced, superbly written muiltiauthored textbook. Excellent discussion of basic cell biology of embryonic and adult (nonembryonic) stem cells from multiple sources, laboratory techniques and potential clinical applications and includes a chapter on ethics and national policy for stem cell research. Suitable for students, clinicians as well as experienced stem cell biologists.

This large book follows the common trend in new and emerging sciences in being written by a large number of authors who are active researchers in the field. The science simply has not yet had time to resolve itself into a common body of knowledge that one author can present to the world.

In this book there are some 200 contributors from literally around the world. A quick scan shows people from the United States, Israel, the UK, Italy, Switzerland, Australia, Japan and more. As you would expect each team of authors concentrates on the particular area of research in which he is engaged. This gives you an up to date view of the state of the art at the risk of having chapters of unequal quality.

The book starts off with the simple question, "What are stem cells." There are then chapters on what they do, how they work, methods and procedures used in research, and several chapters on how stem cell research is developing treatments for various diseases. The book concludes with four chapters on the regulations and ethics of stem cell research. This includes chapters on governmental and religious aspects. This sections concludes with a paper by the actress Mary Tyler Moore who has had type 1 diabetes for more than 40 years. She titles her chapter "It's Not About Curiosity, It's About Cures."

This book is the definitive state of the art as it exists today.

This book is an excellent place to start if you're interested in stem cells. It covers just about all areas of research and is authoritatively authored by serveral experts in the field. The only caveat is that the field is changing so rapidly that some of the information in the book is a bit outdated (and of course, that's true of just about science text). However, you can quickly supplement the information in this book by getting more current research papers off pubmed or elsewhere. All in all, I think this book does provide an excellent foundation for getting into the field and understanding the basic science and its potential promise.

I bought this book for a class I was taking and now find myself using it on a weekly basis as a resource for my job. It has all the update information you could possibly need to know about stem cell biology.

With his prior collaborative book, "Principles of Tissue Engineering" this text, "Essentials of Stem Cell Biology" provides the essential rationale for that curious endeavor of applied biology we call "healthcare". While others are wringing hands and endlessly belaboring cost-effectiveness, access to care, competitive efficacy and other bureaucratic minutia, Bob Lanza has kept his eyes to the stars. Motivated no doubt by the thrill of discovery which truly historical thinkers enjoy, and others have inspired in Dr. Lanza, mankind surely benefits from the fruits of his labors. The contents, of this book, covering a plethora of topics and concepts, is so well organized that one could read it from beginning to end as a novel or piecemeal as queries demand from an encyclopedia. The limits of this text are merely those of a physical bound book itself. I pray the publishers will expand an online edition that can be edited and updated monthly, for that is the speed at which the future's promises emerge. Robert Lanza is that rare individual that knows a story, knows how to tell it well, and bring to practical fruition all its manifest gifts. In this regard he is a kind of Steve Jobs of biology and applied life sciences.

Yet, Dr. Lanza has not forgotten his clinical roots. While ideal in its concepts, the data in this book are equally practical since they provide intelligible rationales for the kind of innovative clinical procedures that each individual patient expects and prefers. All the Gaussian frequency distributions, categorical mandates and customs of clinical care, will not fill the void that emerges when a patient asks, "Isn't there anything you can do for me as an individual, Doctor? Each compassionate, humanistic and thinking clinician knows that the "average" patient is merely a statistical construct and in the real world one had better have a compelling argument for each individual treatment rendered. This book provides a tissue/cell level rationale for such treatment excellence, not that potpourri, that boiling stew of pseudo cures, commercial nostrums, shifting consensus and folklore that jams the flow of lucid clinical thought. Without the "North Star" of Lanza and his collaborators, the hapless clinician is sadly adrift in the intellectual seas of 21st Century life science.

I have this book shipped from US to Thailand. I cannot believe that it takes only two weeks which is earlier than I expected it to be arriving. This book is a must for researcher and student who work on stem cell research. It's a good reference with the most up-to-date information.

A special feature of this book include the information about iPS cell. It really help me understand what is stem cell and its application. However, the book is not for a beginner in this field. Some aspects in this book require advance knowledge in Cell biology, Immunology as well as Genetics Science. I don't have a very strong background in cell biology at all and I know nothing about immunology and genetics at all. So I have to review those information first in order to understand what it says in the book.

But I give more than 5 stars for this book!

"Essentials of Stem Cell Biology belongs on the shelf of every researcher, clinician, and student who is interested in new developments in stem cell research and the related treatment options that are being developed."

Brand new condition! No problems with seller. Book was required for a class, but the text is slightly difficult to understand. Since it's an overview of concepts, the authors don't go into detail making the topics hard to understand on your own. However, the chapters are very short for a quick read!

The 69 chapters in this book, the 2nd edition published in July 2009, together contain a wealth of information from developmental biology and molecular biology to medicine. Many chapters contain helpful diagrams and pictures to go along with explanations. However, it is very mammalian-oriented, with insufficient coverage of regeneration and stem cell biology in non-mammals. In addition, this type of book should have many more references at the end of each chapter that can lead the reader to the original journal articles rather than a list of review articles. Some chapters have better lists of references than others. Overall, the Essentials of Stem Cell Biology contains more than essentials for mammalian stem cell biology, including methods, but is deficient in essentials such as non-mammalian stem cell biology and references to primary research articles.

The best for Stem Cell Biology for student or for someone who like to learn new things.