Molecular Biology of the Cell [With Dvdrom]

I've just finished reading this book and i feel this new edition is even better than it's predecessor, which is already not far from perfect. This well-known textbook is a comprehensive overview of what we have known about molecular cell biology, and what's more important is - every material here are treated very clearly and carefully, and this is where this book really shines - I even believe a layman with some elementary knowledge about chemistry and biology could not only read this book from cover to cover but also actually *understand* them.Both the material and the references are quite up-to-date (not surprising), so don't hesitate to buy if you have the third edition.I give it five stars because:1) the authority is doubtless;2) it's comprehensive, wide in scope;3) the text is written in plain english, thus won't confuse students in the non-english speaking countries;4) the figures are *really* excellent, IMHO better than any others that I have seen in other books;5) the index is nice;and some minor flaws:The typesetting of "List of Topics" is somewhat... odd. There are no page numbers associate with the individual topics in that list too. Also I think the reference sections could be better.So... let it be 4.5 stars.

I'm an amateur biologist, and a professional computer software engineer and product reviewer. A keen interest in the mechanics of genetic expression has drawn me to the beautiful details of cellular mechanics. While this book is everything the other reviewers say (and are qualified to say) it is, let me weigh in on the accompanying CD, which is an area in which I can claim some expertise. The vast majority of CDs bundled with textbooks are afterthoughts -- either an electronic copy of the text, or some lightly related adjunct materials, usually pulled from the public domain. MBotC is different. The CD is nothing short of breathtaking. A technical tour de force, this CD runs on both Mac and Windows, which is no mean feat. It leverages time-tested technologies such as Netscape, Java, and Quicktime to produce stunningly vivid presentations. It performs well, and is rock-solid stable. Beyond flawless delivery, the content itself is brilliantly executed. This is largely original content developed for this book, and tied directly into the text chapter by chapter. You get narrated animations that show dozens of cellular processes in a way that catalyzes learning. Videos capture live microscopy showing ATP synthase rotors spinning, microtubules self-assembling, actin crawling, and mitosis mitoting. An image magnifier lets you browse photomicrographs in detail. Most astounding of all is the seamless incorporation of a molecular viewer, the Chime Java browser plugin, which directly reads and interprets Protein Data Base (PDB) files and displays the models in interactive 3D. The CD includes hundreds of PDB models, including a wonderful reference library of amino acids, nucleotimes, lipids, and sugars. The CD alone is worth hundreds of dollars, just in the labor expended to assemble material from labs around the world and organize it to fit the chapters of the text. I've used numerous of CDs promising to teach molecular biology, and nothing else comes remotely close to the quality and depth of this volume. That you can buy the CD -- with a ten-pound book attached -- for [the price] is simply a miracle. It's a no-brainer for anybody remotely interested in cell biology. If you're one of them, you must buy this!

Well, considering that this book got me through a full year of molecular and cell biology as an undergraduate, I'm pretty fond of the book. Especially considering that the second half of the year was taught by two people who had never taught a class in their lives before. Reason for the five stars is that this is an INTRODUCTORY level textbook written about 7 years ago. Even considering that, it's thorough enough and comprehensive enough for an entire year. I wasn't expecting work done last year to be included and I wasn't expecting that it would delve into the intricate details of photosynthetic reaction centers or the latest in optical methods in single molecule dynamics. If you want that kind of detail, go to the journals or specialized texts. However, for those undergraduates undertaking a full year of MCB, I can't recommend this text highly enough. And if you're looking for prokaryotic information, I'd go pick up a copy of Prescott, Harley, and Klein's "Microbiology."

In graduate school for Neuroscience I had to take a class on molecular biology and biochemistry which was required of all med students whether Ph.D. or M.D. or both. We had five different teachers in the class, three of whom were foreign. Since I was the first Deaf person to take Neuroscience there, they weren't prepared for me...and I ended up taking the class without interpreters! I had to lipread the teachers. If it hadn't been for this particular textbook, I would never had made it through! I am not kidding anyone by saying this. YOu can take a class with just this textbook for information and still pass with flying colors. That is how well this text is written. For once, the book was written with the student in mind, not the peers of the authors. It was written to teach the same information that the authors had in such a way as to make it understandable. Not only did I use this text in this class but in most of my classes at med school. When I started working on HIV encephalitis in my chosen lab for two years, I was not surprised to find this book on the shelves...and we all referred to it constantly. I applaud the authors for a job well done, and if I ever write a textbook, this will be the one I use to follow as an appropriate way to write curriculum. The amount of pictures and graphs were especially great for teaching Deaf students and I intend to use it for such. Karen Sadler, Science Education, University of Pittsburgh

There is so much praise in the other reviews, what else should one say about this book ? Before holding the book in my hands, I wondered why so many reviewers mention the pictures in this book. Now I know why. The authors use different kinds of pictures to make clear what is where in a cell and how parts cooperate: 1. simple line drawings and chemical structures 2. coloured schemes for complex structures 3. images from Electron Microscopes or Micrographs. The images are (technically, sharpness, details, contrast) of very good quality. I have never seen better ones, but this may be my fault.I could go on in praising this extraordinarily good text book like the other reviewers, but instead I will try to play Advocatus Diaboli. So, what could one say against this book ? 1. It is expensive 2. It is heavy, you will never take it to class room 3. Laboratory techniques are not described, you have to buy the companion "Problems Book" for techniques and experiments 4. This book is mostly about eucaryotic cells, this means there is very few information about bacteria in it. 5. The chapters are structured according to processes in the cell, if your approach is a different one, you need the index to find the places in the book.I bought this book because I wanted information about bacteria, so I am a bit disappointed by the book because of its focus on eucaryotic cells. But this book still is the best book about microbiology in general that I have (although microbiology in general is not its focus).