From Book News, Inc.
Minoru (chemistry, Kyoto U.) addresses the gap between the massive data becoming available at the molecular level now that many whole genomes are being mapped, and information at the level of integrated biological systems. He explains the process of analyzing biological functions in terms of the network of interacting molecules and genes in order to understand how a biological system is organized from its individual blocks. He both surveys the database and computational technologies relevant to molecular sequence analysis, and provides a conceptual framework and practical methods for representing and computing molecular networks. The treatment is based on his lecture series for undergraduate students.Book News, Inc.®, Portland, OR--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
The genome projects have now entered a rapid production phase with complete genome sequences and complete gene catalogues already available for a number of organisms and an increasing number expected shortly. In addition the new DNA and protein chip technologies can produce functional data about genes such as gene expression profiles at a rapid rate. There is therefore a large and ever increasing amount of data about genes and molecules. However there is still a huge gap between information at the molecular level and information at the level of integrated biological systems. It is this gap that is addressed in Post-genome Informatics. Post-genome informatics is the analysis of biological functions in terms of the network of interacting molecules and genes with the aim of understanding how a biological system is organized from its individual building blocks. As well as containing a comprehensive survey of the database and computational technologies relevant to molecular sequence analysis, Post-genome Informatics will provide the reader with a conceptual framework and practical methods for the representation and computation of molecular networks.
Book Info
Kyoto Univ., Japan. Provides the reader with a conceptual framework and practical methods for the representation and computation of molecular networks. Softcover, also available in hardcover. Rating 3.0
A vision of future directionsThe previous reviewer is correct that this is not a book on coding or data models. But it is not intended to be. The author has a vision of where bioinformatics needs to go and he articulates this clearly. Most books in the field are blinkered by comparison. Chapter 4 on network analysis of moelecular interactions is a valuable (if general) contribution to the discussion on how computational and systems models can be applied to deepening our understanding of how pathways might actually work, and how these models can be connected to existing data resources.The references are somewhat patchy, or I would have given the book five stars, but still provide some useful leads. More Bio than InfomaticsThis book does a great job covering the basics of gentics and the problems posed for bioinformatics. How the ATCG build up to amino acids, those into DNA, RNA, Proteins, viruses... Then using each of these hierarchical levels as a point of view for analysis, searching, comparisons. Strong concepts, got me thinking. It's a good primer/ref for this, but that's only half of what I bought the book for. The two stars are earned here.The Informatics part is a wash over (Extremely weak). They talk about raw data (factual) versus annotation and writeups oriented more for research than comparisions. They mention relational databases, show one simple sample query, and then talk about object oriented programming and it's advantages for two pages. There is no code in this book. There is not a sample data model, nor an attempt to do any modeling of this complex data. No stars earned here, this is not a computer-technical reference. Repeat:This is not a computer-technical reference. The book does list web references for more information and web sites for updates and flat file feeds. A plus, but if you use a search engine, you can find the same things. |
