Customer Reviews

Genes VI

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I am a senior in biochemistry and this year I am going to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for graduate study. Genes VI is an incredibly comprehensive yet well-written and clear book. It helped me to achieve 800 on GRE Subject in Biochemistry. Greate pictures on every page generalize main concepts and help you remember everything easily. You may just skim through the pictures and refresh your knowledge quickly. The author selected the right approach -- his book summarizes and ties into an interconnected science concepts from genetics, cell biology, and biochemistry. Like Molecular Biology of the Cell by B.Alberts it is a must for every biochemistry, molecular biology or genetics student.

I found that this book was a wonderful book for learning just above the basics of cellular genetics and gene regulation, but was better when not used alone. Keep an eye out in the first two to three chapters for several mistakes.

I really don't understand the individuals who reviewed this text as "confusing" or "not fit for students". As a beginning text for those interested in the art of molecular biology, this book is great. The diagrams are mostly clear and the reading is elementary level if the technical terminology is removed. There are a few mistakes throughout the book, but some of them are due to recent discovery since it was published. The text makes me wish I had Mr. Lewin for a professor because one can tell he would be a talented teacher.

Mistakes on most every page. How could an ethical editor allow it into circulation?

This book, in fact the entire series from Genes I to Genes VI is incredible. It should be required reading for every student of genetics and molecular biology. Dr. Lewin writes an incredibly detailed text, yet he makes the most difficult concepts understandable. Read the table of contents. If any of it applies to your studies or your research and you want to improve your knowledge of the area. Get this book

This book gives a good view of the mechanics of cellular genetics and has been helpful in a pinch as a refresher when looking at the basics of gene regulation etc... Maybe some of the data is off but if you are looking for information related to Molecular Biology in only one refrence text, then you have more to worry about than inconsistent data, all texts have errors here and there, this book is no exception. Let's not forget that science evolves, and as we learn more about the mechanisims that regulate cellular genetics some theories and data become useless. All in all it serves its puropse well as a teaching text and as an added source of refrence materal, I would recommend it to a fellow researcher.

The figures are inaccurate or confusing. Like the cis- and trans- prolyl-peptidyl links. If told cofiguration of cis and trans, everyone can draw the figure printed on the book and that provides no information on the 3-D structure at all.

Here is my revised review of this text. The material within is too ridiculously specific to be of much use to undergraduates, who need good, classic models of phenomena to understand. On the other hand, the material selection is far too hit-or-miss and general in each area to be of use to a researcher. The researcher will continue to benefit primarily from review articles, while the undergraduate will find a good biochemistry text most helpful (try Voet & Voet's section on DNA replication, repair, etc... it is excellent and can be read in a finite amount of time).

Bless Ben Lewin's little heart, I don't know who the hell this book will be good for.

Benjamin Lewin presents concepts in a clear, concise, MEMORABLE fashion. The figures are well thought out and aid the user in quickly understanding the accompanying text. The text is heavy to be sure, and I wouldn't want to haul it around, but as a desktop text/reference, it is indeed first class.

Rumor has it that Oxford Press was paid by the pound for this text. The extremely large font (14pt?) is extremely annoying unless you really enjoy flipping pages. The index is the worst ever, the references are scanty, and the text is long on illustrations and short on substance. In fact, the illustrations are the only thing that save this book, which reduces many complex molecular mechanisms into simple succinct paradigms, completely heedless of accuracy. The mere mention of this book in my medical school lecture hall illicited a long series of groans and sighs. Buy it only if you absolutely have to!