For sophomore/junior-level courses in cell biology offered out of molecular and/or cell biology departments. Cell and Molecular Biology gives students the tools they need to understand the science behind cell biology. Karp explores core concepts in considerable depth, and presents experimental detail when it helps to explain and reinforce the concept being explained. This fifth edition continues to offer an exceedingly clear presentation and excellent art program, both of which have received high praise in prior editions.
Cell and molecular biology has some things that it does really well, but there’s a lot of things it can’t fit in. It’s generally good at explaining terms that you wouldn’t know, but it isn’t going to explain basic terms. It explains most of the methods they use to examine different aspects of different parts of the cell. It’s also good at explaining the processes that people did to discover and verify things; it goes quite in depth into the history of how things were discovered. It doesn’t go quite as in depth into the chemistry of it, which is something that I really wanted it to go in depth on. It does go into what different proteins and things like that do though. Overall good ook.
This was my textbook on the first year of medical school. I found it enjoyable, but the information should be more organized. As a textbook, its goal should be making the information to the student easy to remember and recall throughout the chapters. Oftentimes the key information is “hidden” between long paragraphs of describing an experiment. The paragraphs are so unnecessarily long that many people at my university chose to buy notes made from this book instead of the book itself, which to me is a pity. I really enjoyed studying this book, however it was a mental strain trying to get the main information out of it. Could have saved a lot more time. Definitely needs a new edition. It’s definitely well written with a rich colourful language.