Customer Reviews

Genetics: From Genes to Genomes w/ Genetics: From Genes to Genomes CD-ROM

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This text was used in a class that I TAed. Many of the students found the text too detailed and confusing and so they relied mostly on the professor's notes. The text is overly wordy as it describes genetics in detail from a problem solving point of view. There are many problems at the end of each chapter ranging from simple to extremely difficult.

The CD is just plain silly. It tries to be interactive, but the activities are either too easy like the chromosome matching activity that makes `incorrect' noises until you match the correct pair (and really what do you learn from that anyway) or just non-intuitive. I remember playing with one section about genetic markers, and I gave up frustrated with trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Interactive Fly lab is much more useful than this CD. You won't be missing anything if you get a used copy without the CD.

From a graduate student perspective, Part IV of this text: Portraits of Model Eukaryotic Organisms is extremely useful. There is a chapter on each of the most commonly used model organisms: yeast, plant, worm, fly, and mouse that explain a brief history of the use of the organism, how genetics is done in that organism, and what is most useful to study in the organism. When I first started graduate school I found myself reading papers and getting lectures about specific model systems that I had never worked with before and these chapters brought me up to speed quickly.

I used this text as an undergraduate three years ago. It provided me with a wonderful insight into genetics genomics and introductory molecular biology. The books is highly readable with wonderful diagrams and a marvelous set of probelsm following each chapter. Also note one of the authors Dr. Hartwell is a nobel laureate. I believe a new edition is on the way but I find myself unwilling to part with my favorite genetics book even as a graduate student. The price of the new edition would be especially high like when I bought the 1st edition. I suggest the low budget readers like me to buy used copies of the 1st edition because the prices are dropping fast on used copies. Highly recommended for undergraduates of all levels and as an introductory text for a graduate level genomics course.

This textbook was helpful and easy to read. It is a nice introductory textbook into genetics for an individual who has yet to take molecular biology or biochemistry. It seems to be just the right length as well; however, it is rather pricy for its thickness. The major issues that I had with this textbook were that there were several errors throughout the text and even more in many of the figures. The figures were wonderful unless you tried thinking about them, at which point, several errors were discovered. For an introductory genetics student, mistakes in figures can be a large problem simply because students often rely on figures to explain new information. I know that their next edition, the 2nd edition, which is now out, will only be better & I look forward to reading it! :)