About this title: Reviews of the Second Edition ."In this book, Andy Baxevanis and Francis Ouellette . . . have undertaken the difficult task of organizing the knowledge in this field in a logical progression and presenting it in a digestible form. And they have done an excellent job. This fine text will make a major impact on biological research and, in turn, on progress in biomedicine. We are all in their debt."
--Eric Lander, from the Foreword to the Second Edition
"The editors and the chapter authors of this book are to be applauded for providing biologists with lucid and comprehensive descriptions of essential topics in bioinformatics. This book is easy to read, highly informative, and certainly timely. It is most highly recommended for students and for established investigators alike, for anyone who needs to know how to access and use the information derived in and from genomic sequencing projects."
--Trends in Genetics
"It is an excellent general bioinformatics text and reference, perhaps even the best currently available . . . Congratulations to the authors, editors, and publisher for producing a weighty, authoritative, readable, and attractive book."
--Briefings in Bioinformatics
"This book, written by the top scientists in the field of bioinformatics, is the perfect choice for every molecular biology laboratory."
--The Quarterly Review of Biology
This fully revised version of a world-renowned bestseller provides readers with a practical guide covering the full scope of key concepts in bioinformatics, from databases to predictive and comparative algorithms. Using relevant biological examples, the book provides background on and strategies for using many of themost powerful and commonly used computational approaches for biological discovery. This Third Edition reinforces key concepts that have stood the test of time while making the reader aware of new and important developments in this fast-moving field. With a new full-color and enlarged page design, Bioinformatics, Third Edition offers the most readable, up-to-date, and thorough introduction to the field for biologists.
This new edition features:
* New chapters on genomic databases, predictive methods using RNA sequences, sequence polymorphisms, protein structure prediction, intermolecular interactions, and proteomic approaches for protein identification
* Detailed worked examples illustrating the strategic use of the concepts presented in each chapter, along with a collection of expanded, more rigorous problem sets suitable for classroom use
* Special topic boxes and appendices highlighting experimental strategies and advanced concepts
* Annotated reference lists, comprehensive lists of relevant Web resources, and an extensive glossary of commonly used terms in bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics
Bioinformatics, Third Edition is essential reading for researchers, instructors, and students of all levels in molecular biology and bioinformatics, as well as for investigators involved in genomics, clinical research, proteomics, and computational biology.
[目录]

Chapter 1. Sequence Databases (Rolf Apweiler).

Chapter 2. Mapping Databases (Tara Matise and Peter S. White).

Chapter 3. Information Retrieval from Biological Databases (Andreas D. Baxevanis).

Chapter 4. Genomic Databases (Tyra Wolfsberg).

Chapter 5. Predictive Methods Using DNA Sequences (Roderic Guigó and Enrique Blanco).

Chapter 6. Predictive Methods Using RNA Sequences (Michael Zucker and David Mathews).

Chapter 7. Sequence Polymorphisms (James C. Mullikin and Stephen T. Sherry).

Chapter 8. Predictive Methods Using Protein Sequences (Burkhard Rost and Yanay Ofran).

Chapter 9. Protein Structure Prediction and Analysis (David Wishart).

Chapter 10. Intermolecular Interactions and Biological Pathways (Gary D. Bader and Anton J. Enright).

Chapter 11. Assessing Pairwise Sequence Similarity: BLAST and FASTA (Andreas D. Baxevanis).

Chapter 12. Creation and Analysis of Protein Multiple Sequence Alignments (Geoffrey J. Barton).

Chapter 13. Sequence Assembly and Finishing Methods (Gerard Bouffard, Nancy F. Hansen, and Pamela Jacques Thomas).

Chapter 14. Phylogenetic Analysis (Fiona S. L. Brinkman).

Chapter 15. Computational Approaches in Comparative Genomics (Andreas D. Baxevanis).

Chapter 16. Microarray Analysis (John Quackenbush)

Chapter 17. Proteomics and Protein Identification (Michael Giddings, Mark R. Holmes, and Kevin Ramkissoon).

Chapter 18. Using Perl to Facilitate Biological Analysis (Lincoln D. Stein).

Average Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
 

   Somewhat more than an out-of-date catalog of tools
The book is a collection of chapters by different authors addressing software tools for various problems: database search, multiple sequence alignment, gene prediction, protein structure prediction, etc. A big flaw is that all of the authors assume a different level of prior background and have rather different emphases.

I'd have to agree with the other reviewer that Chapters 1 & 17, which constitute 10% of the book, are wasted paper. No one in 2001 (when the book was published), let alone 2004, needs Chapter 1's lengthy explanation of what e-mail and web browsers are. And the perl program at the anticlimax of Chapter 17 was ... anticlimactic.

The book is to a great extent a catalog of available software tools. With the exception of the chapters on multiple alignment and phylogeny, the emphasis is on not on how the tools work but how to operate them -- to the of saying "at this URL there is a web page where you can either paste in your sequence or upload a file". The idea of invoking a program through a Unix command line is more than once presented as a truly daunting prospect. The authors generally do a good job of emphasizing that the programs are the beginning of analysis and not the end; the results must always be viewed somewhat skeptically with an expert eye.

If you're coming at the book as a biologist, you will probably find it to be a useful catalog of software, though undoubtedly dated by now. If you're coming at it from the informatics side, you're going to need some background... a book like Dwyer's, Setubal and Meidanis's, or Mount's will get you up to speed on the algorithm aspects of the field with simplified versions of many of the big problems. Then you can look at this book to find good pointers to the ways the real-world versions have been addressed.

The book was published three years ago and, being to a large extent an index of the work of others, is necessarily no longer up to date in a fast-moving field. It needs a revision and, in the meantime, it would make more sense to snag a used copy than to pay full price for a new book.

   A survey for tool users
Like any survey, it seems to touch the major features only. And, as others have pointed out, the tools change but the book doesn't.

I think this is a good, brief introduction to the wide variety of bioinformatic tools and databases on the internet. It describes the major features of each, and the kinds of results that each tool is good for. After that, the serious user will go to the sources of each tool or database, to learn more about the specifics as of the moment. No book can hope to keep up with the weekly enhancements at the major repositories.

I emphasize that this is for tools users, not tool makers. It addresses the working scientists who already know their subjects and their needs. This skips over the algorithms in favor of higher level descriptions, and skips over many of the biological reasons for the tools described. Better-informed tool users get better answers from the tools, true. At some point, though, the biologists want to skip the theory, skip the introduction to subjects in which they're experts, and get on with their science. I don't think this book was ever meant for people - and I'm one - who want full details of the algorithms.

I agree, the book treats its many subjects in a shallow way. I think that is by intent, since the book's real goal is breadth and its target is a reader who knows the basic science. It's a bit off the center of my interests, but I've found it helpful.

   Bioinformatic for the beginner...
I guess that everybody interrested by this kind of book knows already a little about bioinformatic and wants to improve his bioinformatician skill. So forget about this book:
This is really a well-documented introduction to all the methods currently used by every biologist or biology student, such as Blast, Clustal, multiple alignement or use of web-interface for submiting sequence.
So get it if you need a clear introduction to the field, but if you already know a little bit about bioinfo, immediately choose a more detailed book.