Molecular Biology: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #485

by Aysha Divan, Janice Royds

Molecular Biology is the story of the molecules of life, their relationships, and how these interactions are controlled. It is an expanding field in life sciences, and its applications are wide and growing. We can now harness the power of molecular biology to treat diseases, solve crimes, map human history, and produce genetically modified organisms and crops, and these applications have sparked a multitude of fascinating legal and ethical debates.In this Very Short Introduction, Aysha Divan and Janice Royds examine the history, present, and future of Molecular Biology. Starting with the building blocks established by Darwin, Wallace and Mendel, and the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, they consider the wide range of applications for Molecular Biology today, including the development of new drugs, and forensic science. They also look forward to two key areas of evolving research such as personalised medicine andsynthetic biology.ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: Science, Biology, Nonfiction, Chemistry, Medicine, Stem, Popular Science

168 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was totally absorbed by this. It reads like a detective story: DNA, RNA, proteins - what else is required for a person with a good sense of fun:-) Well, on a more serious note, if you are interested to get some initial understanding how all of this works and interacts, it is not a bad place to start. Life sciences are developing rapidly and are taking progressively more sophisticated role around and more alarmingly within us. They are on the front line of vaccine developing, gene therapies, GMOs and all that up to designer babies (God forbid) and antibiotic resistance. Basically they are everywhere. So it is good idea to have some grasp of the topic. But now I am properly interested. I need to look for a next book which would tell me more, but hopefully without me requiring a course of biochemistry... But then, why not?

[Heilika · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.4

[Sivan A · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some interesting facts and is a good introduction to molecular biology and DNA. If you are not interested in the subject you probably should not read the book. In some parts it did not really keep my attention.

[Lalit Singh Tomar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for starters ...

Explain clearly about DNA RNA Proteins and some mind boggling future technological of this field.

I found Epigenetics very interesting ...

Very well written for a layman...

Detailed review will follow ....

[Mykyta Kuzmenko · Rating 2 out of 5]

Простой и понятной я бы эту книгу не назвал.

[Kevin Gibbons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat!

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aclaratorio e iluminador a ratos, aunque no deja de ser denso. Requiere sí o sí recuerdos de química y biología básica (onda, colegio).

[Juan Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for understanding the principles of Molecular Biology. This Oxford series are great introductions for a lot of topics.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

A far-ranging yet dense overview. A bit technical in places but it's easy enough to skip around.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some bits lost me

[Usfromdk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great publication, considering the format. These authors in my opinion managed to get quite close to what I'd consider to be 'the ideal level of coverage' for books of this nature.

[Allen The Gnome Wizard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting and compact little book.

However, although I understand its goal to be brief, it occasionally throws out some terms, concepts, or abbreviations without explaining what they are (e.g. it didn't bother to explain that "kb" stands for "kilobases"). Also, there are occasionally little things that seem a bit off or not very clear. For example, the book says that Calgene created the Favr Savr tomato by "knocking out the expression of the gene coding for the enzyme endo-polygalacturonase [PG]..." (89). This makes it sound like they knocked out the gene or shut off its expression, when, in fact, they left it intact but inserted an antisense PG gene that would produce mRNA complementary to the PG mRNA, thereby interfering with the PG protein production.

But, overall, this is quite an informative and educational book that touches upon many intriguing topics. And I think it would be a good read for anyone interested in exploring the wide range of molecular biology topics/applications (and has at least a little bit of knowledge in biology).

[Napalmlolita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much repetition of things everyone already knows.

[Ryan Hoyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to mol bol. Some prerequisite biology needed. Lots of real world examples and explanations of how things were discovered.

[Trisha Roberson]

Didn't get very much out of it. Technical little book.