The Making of a Fly: The Genetics of Animal Design (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In The Making of a Fly, one of the world's foremost authorities guides readers through the developmental process of the fruit fly, drosophila melanogaster. (This fly proves to be the almost perfect organism for the combined study of embryology and genetics.) This first comprehensive treatment of animal design and construction presents the exciting story of new molecular techniques used by imaginative scientists. Black-and-white photos and line drawings.

From the Back Cover

Understanding how a multicelluar animal develops from a single cell (the fertilized egg) poses one of the greatest challenges in biology today. Development from egg to adult involves the sequential expression of virtually the whole of an organisms genetic instructions both in the mother as she lays down developmental cues in the egg, and in the embryo itself. Most of our present information on the role of genes in development comes from the invertebrate fruit fly, Drosophila. The two authors of this text (amongst the foremost authorities in the world) follow the developmental process from fertilization through the primitive structural development of the body plan of the fly after cleavage into the differentiation of the variety of tissues, organ and body parts that together define the fly. The developmental processes are fully explained throughout the text in the modern language of molecular biology and genetics. This text represents the vital synthesis of the subject that many have been waiting for and it will enable many specific courses in developmental biology and molecular genetics to be focussed upon it appealing to 2nd and 3rd year students in these disciplines as well as in biochemistry, neurobiology and zoology. It will also have widespread appeal amongst researchers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 228 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (April 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0632030488
• ISBN-13: 978-0632030484
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #201,472 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #3 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Genetics
  #48 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Zoology > Invertebrates
  #54 in	Books > Science > Biological Sciences > Biology > Developmental Biology

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bristling with insight, February 19, 2002

By	Edmund Paley "Lutheran Biochemist" - See all my reviews

What a great book! Lawrence has managed to take the long history and complex details of genetic studies on drosophila development, and synthesize it all into an accessible summary that anyone can understand. This is by far the most concise and straightforward summary of fly development, and should be considered a must-read for anyone who cares about developmental biology. OK, full-time fly people will probably find it mostly too basic, but for the rest of us it's just right. Sidebars on the different techniques provide useful details for those who care without interrupting the flow of the prose. Defiantely recommended. Plus, the cover picture is really cool.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Self-builder, November 26, 2000

By	Howard Schneider (Thornhill, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

The general reader interested in not only how a single fly egg cell develops into a complex, formed fly, but how genetic and molecular biological experiments are used to determine such mechanisms, will find this book useful. The maternal systems that establish positional information in the egg cell, followed by the development of parasegments, and followed by expression of groups of cells, are described. It is shown that a large amount of genetic information is required to simply organize the embryo, besides building it. Many of the genes discussed have homologues in other higher animals such as vertebrates.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What knock-outs can tell you, November 3, 2005

By	Mark Mills (Glen Rose, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a wonderful summary of that which we have learned from genetic knock-out and knock-in technology. There is a systemic evaluation of even the earliest cell divisions and the results are clear: knock-out or knock-in a gene, and the patterns change. Even axial organization of the egg can be influenced by knocking out a gene.

The focus is entirely on making sense of the drosophila with knock-out and knock-in experiments . Fundamental research into initiating metabolic activity, surface chemistry and protein assembly is not addressed.