Introduction to Biotechnology

The biotechnology book arrived in just a few days and it is in very good shape. So that really helped me.

As a profesor, I use this book in my nonmajors Biology and Society class where it functions well to introduce nonscientist to interesting aspects of biotechnology and the important issues surrounding the science. I also use it in my upper-level genetics class where it works as a nice introduction to biotechnology (and review, in some cases) allowing us to delve deeper into the science and issues using assigned papers. I like it a lot, as do my students; and compared with most textbooks it doesn't cost much. I wish it had more color photographs.

The focus of this book is what kinds of jobs and products can be found in the area of applied biology. The science and technology part is found in most of the modern biology texts, but what is lacking is a sense of how to apply that understanding to create new products and solve human problems. This book is a little pricey and if you are only interested in the science and technology aspect you will be better served by buying a paperback edition of one of the better introductory biology texts. The price of several of the paperback intros to biology are less than this book, have many color plates and in depth coverage more three times the length of this book. It's that focus on jobs and products that provides the justification for publishing this book. Hopefully it will provoke the authors of the major intro to biology texts to provide more material on where their students can later go for employment and how they can, by giving examples, go on to create products that improve the human condition. If the reader emerges from their encounter with this book by thinking with an employment and products mindset towards the science and technology of biology than it will have fulfilled (in my mind) what appears to be it purpose.