Description

This book of “Principles and Techniques of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology” is a book intended for advanced undergraduates. The presentation of the topics in an experimental-rich context should be helpful to students who are frequently overwhelmed with the sheer amount of biochemical information. Each chapter contains well-written, concise, wide-ranging descriptions that cover traditional methods and newly developed techniques. The instructor will need to guide students through the array of methods and alternatives presented. The various flow charts are an especially useful way to organize complex material and remind students who are accustomed to using kits that each experimental step has a biochemical purpose. Some chapters, such as the mass spectrometry chapter, contain useful example problems worked out, but there are no lists of problems for students to work out. Here are excellent figures that help understand the instrumentation as well as well-labelled sample spectra and worked out sample problems. The strengths of this chapter are the inclusion of sections on developing technologies that give the student a sense of mass spectrometry as an evolving technique and the discussion of how mass spectrometry data may be used in conjunction with other data and databases.