Customer Reviews

Genomes 2

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found that "Genomes" provides the reader with a thorough yet gentle introduction to the field -- ample illustrations, well-written text, frequent sidebars describing relevant techniques or developments. I've found the book to be a good reference to have on the shelf, and have purchased copies for people when they join my lab group in order to introduce them to or refamiliarize themselves with the technologies underlying the generation of sequence data. I can very easily see this book being used to supplement lectures in an introductory course on genomics and biotechnology.

Genomes is a very good text and suits my Molecular Biology course perfectly.Whereas Lewin's Genes is didactically poor and full of mistakes, Genomes is clear, concise and extremely well-organised.

"This is a superb textbook for modern molecular biology. The set-up of the book is very reader-friendly. Everything is cross-referenced, which is enormously helpful. Another nice aspect of the book is the small, digestible sections separate from the main body of text. Overall Brown's book is an excellent textbook that provides a thorough account of what is known about Genomes today."

This is an outstanding book, very rich with information and links to other resources, including scientific journals, genomic databases, and tools. The diagrams are concise and used only where they amplify a concept.

Genomes is intended for a graduate-level audience and is nowhere near as simplistic as "A Cartoonists Guide to Genetics." The presentation is extremely well organized and thorough, and the author's excitement of the material is evident. Topics covered include the difficulty of programatically locating exon-intron boundaries, the discrepancies between physical & genetic maps and how markers are used in mapping.

This is an excellent reference.

Novel approach focused on genomics. Valuable sidebars, and invaluable 32 page glossary.
Three years old, not covering new powerful sequencing algorithms, but 2nd edition (due next month) might.

An excellent book. Incredible pictures. Starts from a basic enough point for most computer scientists, it even covers many
"exceptions" to many of the rules discovered in nature. Even covers microarrays.

Great overview of the field. Very strong usage of diagrams and illustrations. Logical and clear progress from chapter to chapter. I had no prior knowledge in the field and after reading this book I feel I can understand most concepts challenges and research efforts on the field. A great book for anyone who wants to get up to speed on this fascinating field.

Because of the explosion of genetics research and technology in today's world, many textbooks and monographs on the subject have appeared. This book is certainly one of the finest of these, and emphasizes, as stated in the the preface, the major research issues in genetics, rather than issues that were important two decades ago. Genomes, not genes, the author states, should be the topic of primary focus. The more fundamental 'microscopic' processes such as DNA replication and mutation are studied in terms of their effects on the genome. This reflects the current move in genetics to find common ground between classical genetics and modern molecular genetics. Clearly the author is very excited about the developments in genetics that have taken place in the last decade, and this shows in his writing. The only major omission in the book is the lack of exercises; these are of upmost importance in the learning process. The book, written for beginning graduate students, could also be useful to mathematicians, physicists, or computer scientists who are moving into bioinformatics or computational biology.

Some of the more interesting discussions in the book include: 1. The C-value paradox: The correlation between the complexity of an organism and the size of its genome is explained by a space optimization argument, i.e. the genomes of simpler organisms conserve space by packing the genes closer together. 2. Using DNA markers versus gene markers for genetic mapping. 3. Single nucleotide polymorphisms, oligonucleotide hybridization analysis, and their use in DNA chip technology and dynamic allele-specific hybridization. 4. The need for physical mapping techniques and the discussion on the discrepancies between genetic and physical maps of S. cerevisiae chromosome III. 5. The use of orthogonal field alternation gel electrophoresis to separate molecules of more than 50kb in length. 6. Rapid sequence acquisition strategies, such as expressed sequence tags and sequence skimming. 7. The ethicial ramifications of the Human Genome Project. 8. The difficulty of existing software programs to assist in the location of exon-intron boundaries. 9. Homology searching and analysis. 10. The telomere and the role of telomeric proteins in capping chromosome ends. 11. The location of genes and the isochore model of genome organization. 12. The role of extra chromosomal genes in explaining inheritance patterns of some phenotypes in fungi, yeasts, and algae. 13. The (unanswered) questions as to why organelle genomes cannot be transported through the membranes that surround mitochondira and chloroplasts. 14. The discovery in the 1980s that DNA transfer from organelle to nucleus still occurs and the role of promiscuous DNA. 15. The experimental evidence that genes are made of DNA. 16. The role of bacterial RNA polymerase as a 'sliding clamp'. 17. The three-dimensional structure of tRNA. 18. Ribosome frameshifting. 19. Transient changes in genome activity. 20. Rearrangements of genomes 21. Genome regulation by feedback loops. 22. The genetic basis of flower development. 23. Mutations and recombination. Readers interested in genetic algorithms will appreciate this discussion. 24. The experimental detection of mutations. 25. Adapative mutations in E. coli. Because of its challenge to the current paradigm of evolution, this discussion was particularly interesting. 26. Evidence for ancient genome duplication and molecular phylogenetics.

Cell biology is described very well in terms of Genomics language. So it is certainly an excellent book to learn cell biology and to understand the genomes. Each chapter is well written and covered with important references. Summary of chapter at its end would be helpful to quick review about the chapter. Hope author adds this in the next version.

This is an excellent book and it is well illustrated. There are numerous references and suggested additional reading. The writing is very clear. I have a bachelor of science in bioengineering but I never took courses in molecular biology or genetics and I was able to understand this book well although I did work through most of Quantitative Genetics by Falconer first. Genomes is an excellent introductory text.