Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Edition

I am currently studying bioinformatics at Stanford University, and I purchased this book to be my reference guide on all matters regarding cellular biology. I originally purchased the kindle edition, but returned it in favor of a printed copy. The kindle edition, while complete in content, was difficult to read on my ipad mini. Other kindle books I’ve read allowed me to adjust the font size, which changed the pagination of the book. Unfortunately with this title, the pages are fixed and font size can’t be changed. If I had a full size ipad I might have chosen differently. The book is a hefty beast, with over 1200 pages of detailed descriptions with full color diagrams on every single page. The material is complete and very well explained. I certainly do not consider myself an expert in molecular biology, and found the text easy to read and understand. The book includes a DVD which has an extensive library of animations and short videos. Complicated processes such as transcription and translation are clearly explained in these videos, and watching them helped me fill in a number of concepts I did not get from the text. I have not read the book cover to cover, nor do I plan to. I’ve chosen the topics I want to read and I am skipping around in the book. I’m finding that the topics are so well covered, that one can do this without being too confused. With most text books, I cringe as I plop down my money on a title I will only use for a few months. In this case, I expect to be getting value out of this book for years to come as I continue my studies.

[Reviewing 5th Edition, Chapters 1-7] I'm a Ph.D. computer scientist working on an NIH grant in text mining biomedical literature, so I thought I should bone up on the underlying science. The first seven chapters of this book are just what I needed. The first overview chapter is an excellent standalone introduction to the cell and genomics/proteomics and their ilk. After a two-chapter very comprehensible introduction to biochemistry (strong emphasis on thermodynamics/energy and bonding/structure) and protein structures, the next chapters lay out the entire process from DNA to protein, including expression control. It's slow reading (it takes me an hour or more to read 10 pages), but very clearly written, and very thorough. The diagrams and accompanying text are amazingly clear and helpful. (There are also animations, but I've never looked at the DVD.) The diagrams and their long captions are often supplementary in that they add details that are not in the body of the text. I had read the same sections of the 4th Edition a few years ago. The 5th edition adds substantial new material starting with the chapter on proteins. Ironically, the 5th edition is more speculative, because the more we find out about gene expression, the further away full understanding seems to be. The book does a nice job of balancing what's known fairly certainly with speculative guesses about things like chromatin structure. This time, I think I'll keep going. The sections of the rest of the book I've browsed when they've been cross-referenced are also excellent.

This is going to be a review of the Kindle version, and specifically the Kindle version on an (original) iPad. As to the book itself, this is the best textbook I've ever seen and is just a must-possess item for anyone with the slightest interest in biology. And, wonder of wonders, the Kindle version turns out to be a MUST HAVE even at the price. The print version of MBotC comes in two editions, the regular version and the Reference Edition which includes an extra five printed chapters (they're available as free PDF downloads if you only have the regular edition). The description of the Kindle version suggests that it only contains the 1392 pages of the regular edition, which would be incredibly annoying because why should you have to separately download five PDFs as a supplement to an already electronic book? But it turns out that the Kindle version DOES include the full 1600 pages of the Reference Edition with all 25 chapters! The cover graphic lacks the "Reference Edition" text, but all the pages are there, and the page numbers match up exactly with the printed Reference Edition. So immediately the price starts to look a lot better when you compare it to the Reference Edition. But it gets better. The book looks gorgeous! It looks *exactly* like the printed book, and a full screen page on an iPad is very readable even though it's a couple inches (diagonally) smaller than the actual book. One of my worries was whether it could look anything like as sharp and readable as the real book. Well, it looks *perfect*! In fact, most of the illustrations are actually vector-based, and remain perfectly sharp as you zoom in. This also means that the book will probably look INCREDIBLE on a retina-display iPad as the text and most graphics will be able to render at the higher resolution I would expect. Even the raster-based illustrations are included at a very high DPI such that they too look as sharp as in the printed edition. What more could you want? Well, the book is fully searchable which adds tremendous value over the dead-tree version. Also of course it weighs nothing compared to something like nine pounds for the printed Reference Edition. This is a book that justifies buying an iPad or Kindle Fire just on its own. One of the best (not to mention heaviest) books ever becomes the best Kindle book ever. NOTE! that you MUST have an iPad, Kindle Fire, or PC/Mac to view this book, you cannot even install it on a regular (eInk) Kindle because you need a big color screen to view it on. G.

I read an earlier version 10 years ago and wanted an updated version. This is the best microbiology text book! Don't let the size intimidate you, plenty of pictures and illustrations. Well written and easy to comprehend yet detailed enough to give a complete understanding of biology. Starts from amino acids thru DNA and proteins to plants and animal biological systems. While I prefer new text books with up to date information, this textbook and author stand the test of time. Purchasing this edition saves money over buying new. If you are interested in learning microbiology a decade or more past college or want to gift to a teenager interested in life sciences, this book will give you or them a solid foundation. It is a pleasure reading and learning the details they didn't teach you in high school! Perfect for the family library for a reference book.

Though it is not perfect, this book is certainly better than any of the other cell biology textbooks I've read. It was a required book for a graduate level cell biology course that I am taking and so far I am quite happy with it. It is current, well written, and has a lot to offer both the beginner and the expert in cell biology. I will certainly be keeping this book after the semester is over as I think that it is an excellent reference on the subject. Most of the topics in this book are covered in great detail with a lot of really well chosen references, and I think that for a lot of the subjects covered you would not be able to find anything better outside the journals. The text is clear and carefully written so you do not have to continually have to go back and refer to other chapters to understand new information. The figures are generally clear and easy to understand, though there are some that I feel they over-complicated such that the point they were trying to make was not entirely obvious. Also, some of the sections that are more chemistry or physics related are a bit superficial and contain some over simplified analogies that are not entirely accurate. I think that this book does a good job with the more speculative information, and for the most part tries to make it clear what is known with more certainty vs. what is currently more just speculation. The one thing that really bothers me about this book and the only reason that I am not giving it 5 stars is that, as others have said, the last 5 chapters are not actually included in this version except as PDF files on the included DVD. If you want to have the complete 5th edition of this textbook you must purchase the `reference edition', which costs substantially more than the already very expensive normal version. They claim that they did this to make the book more `portable', although I am guessing it is really to save the publisher money on printing as the book is already quite large and I don't think that including the last five chapters would really make that much difference as far as portability was concerned.

This is possibly the best molecular biology textbook out there. I have read and consulted several others, some with good reputation, and none comes even close in combining quality of information, thoroughness and organization. I would also highly recommend purchasing the Problems Book as it makes a perfect complement to this text [ASIN:0815341105 Molecular Biology of the Cell, Fifth Edition: The Problems Book]. I found it a small inconvenience that the last few chapters are on the CD-ROM (provided) but not included with the printed text (Fifth Edition). For the price, the entire text should be both printed and on the CD-ROM. The video material provided is mostly of good quality, but not all video clips worked for me (they just would not run) despite carefully following the instructions, perhaps it is a Windows compatibility issue. These are relatively minor glitches however and in all other respects the book stands way above the crowd. I would therefore highly recommended it.

A couple years back I was researching glycolysis and the Krebs cycle and needed a reference book that also had other information. Well, this is THE book to get and I'm glad I bought it. It has everything in it. My understanding is that it is mostly for graduate level biology courses or, perhaps, advanced undergraduates. I'm a fairly fast reader, but admit that almost every page has to be studied, not read. So, no, I have not read the entire book, but refer to different sections from time to time. The sections and chapters about DNA seem to continue forever; sometimes I think I can understand it all, other times, well, let's just say I have a newly found respect for geneticists. Highly recommended... - lc

According to my Professor at UC Davis who's been in the Biology field for several decades, this is the be all and end all of cell biology texts. It appears to be an excellent in-depth review of the most up to date material possible and should be a good companion to any cell biology classes, and a good reference to anyone entering a graduate program who needs to know cell biology in depth. However, and this is a huge however, the last five chapters of this edition are ONLY available on CD-rom. This is fine if you buy the book new, but can be a problem for those of us that prefer to buy used books for their lower price. Depending on the class, you might not even need those last five chapters, but I am a little disappointed that I'll need to find another source to get better coverage of the immune system, as my used copy did not come with a CD, and I was unaware that it was supposed to come with a CD until my Professor mentioned it in lecture.