Book Description
This trail-blazing work introduces a quantitative systemsapproach to bioinformatics research using powerful computational toolsdrawn from signal processing, circuit analysis, control systems, andcommunications. It presents the functionality of biological processes in anengineering context to facilitate the application of technical skills insolving the field's challenges, from the lab bench to data analysis andmodeling, and to enable reverse engineering from biology in the developmentof synthetic biological devices.

This first-of-its-kind text explores how the knowledge bases of varioustechnical disciplines relate to, and are observed, in biological systems.You learn fundamental signal processing techniques that are essential tobiological data analysis, including biomedical imaging and imageprocessing, feature extraction, classification, and estimation. You gain athorough understanding of cellular regulatory systems and theirsimilarities to traditional control systems, protein and gene networks,inference networks, and network dynamics. The book also addresses howbiology-inspired molecular structures are being used to solve engineeringchallenges, and how one can mimic biology's designs in creating more robusttechnologies. Moreover, you discover the latest developments in proteomics,where these tools can make an immense impact due to the number, complexity,and interaction networks of proteins. A major addition under the evolvingumbrella of systems biology and bioinformatics, this groundbreaking workpoints you to new frontiers in the convergence of engineering andbiological research.

CD-ROM Included! Contains several fully working programs to save you timeon the job, including Bayesian Discoverer (student version), VisANT, andOBOES, as well as full-color figures, PowerPoint lecture slides, MatlabWebinar, links to Web resources, and more. ... Read more

Book Description
DNA microarrays have revolutionized molecular biology and are becoming a standard tool in the field. Dov Stekel's book is a comprehensive guide to the mathematics, statistics, and computing required to use microarrays successfully. Unlike traditional molecular biology, the successful use of DNA microarrays requires the application of statistics and computing to design the arrays and experiments, and to analyze and manage the data. This book is written for researchers, clinicians, and laboratory managers.Download Description
This book is a comprehensive guide to all of the mathematics, statistics and computing you will need to successfully operate DNA microarray experiments. It is written for researchers, clinicians, laboratory heads and managers, from both biology and bioinformatics backgrounds, who work with, or who intend to work with microarrays. The book covers all aspects of microarray bioinformatics, giving you the tools to design arrays and experiments, to analyze your data, and to share your results with your organisation or with the international community. There are chapters covering sequence databases, oligonucleotide design, experimental design, image processing, normalisation, identifying differentially expressed genes, clustering, classification and data standards. The book is based on the highly successful Microarray Bioinformatics course at Oxford University, and therefore is ideally suited for teaching the subject at postgraduate or professional level. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Great Introduction to Microarray Analysis
This is an excellent introduction to microarray analysis. It is great at explaining the theory behind normalization, clustering, and dimensionality reduction without getting hung up on the statistics behind it. If you are looking for an exhaustive statistical treatment on the topic, this is not the book. But it will give you excellent background on these techniques that make reading statistical papers on the topic much easier for the non-statistics biologist.

Highly recommended.

Neat little book on microarrays
Without question this short paperback is a nifty little text. What it does is provide the beginner with a basic brief overview in covering all major aspects of microarrays.

What you have to keep in mind is this book is intended for those who want a brief overview of all aspects of microarrays. Its a "forest for the trees" book on microarrays. The writing is very good and easy to follow, and its a great introductory text and reasonably priced.

Regardless of ones formal training, (e.g. Biology, Statistics, Computer Science, ... , health science) I think it would make an excellent little basic reference on ones bookshelf or to just have around in the lab for undergraduates/beginning graduate students.

Bottomline: If you prefer to learn things by starting at the start and not at the end then consider this book; Indeed its a great starter book to get your feet a little wet before jumping in over your head to the more gnarly stuff.

If you are new to microarray, get this book.
This book describes basic concepts and procedures for those who are new to microarray. I'd recommend that a reader should use this book to grasp what microarray is. You won't be able to know anything in depth from this book but it will be nice to have this if you have trouble in understanding a more challenging book. Once you read this book, please go ahead and read another book since this book doesn't tell you everything about microarray. It's just a basic overview... i was glad that I used this book as my first microarray textbook....

an intro. for biologists
This book is written clearly, which also means it doesn't touch too deep. I believe it's mainly useful for biologists who want to get a brief and application oriented introduction, but not for the researchers that want to improve the technology.

A Good Book for Microarray Bioinformatics
I rate this book a 5 star because I believe this book is one of best bioinformatics books which make it possible for the biologists to understand the bioinformatic tools inside of microarray technology. For me the most useful chapters include Sequence Databases for Microarrays, Computer Design of Oligonucleotide Probes, Normalisation, Measuring and Quantifying Microarray Variability, Analysis of Differentially Expressed Genes. As a three-years microarray user, I still get a lot information after I read this book. However, no any bioinformatic books are perfect and complete. There are also some limitations in this book. The author sometimes did not provide detailed information on some biostatistic analysis tools and only provided some references for reading. Since a lot of bioinformatic tools are still in the trial stage and need to be improved, we can not blame the author for the incompleteness.
As a 250-pages bioinformatics book, I believe, this book is very informative and useful for microarray users and biologists who are tired of understanding the abstract biostatistic equations. ... Read more

Book Description
Completely revised and updated, Bioinformatics Basics: Applications in Biological Science and Medicine, Second Edition will continue to serve as a tool that allows researchers to easily access and use databases to gather information on genes, proteins, and diseases. This new edition of a bestseller covers new approaches to data analysis using databases around the world. It identifies computing techniques that help readers manage the massive flow of information. The structure of this second edition will follow that of the first and its content will reflect the growth in information. New sections cover recent developments in genome projects, microarrays, proteomics, genome mapping, and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

I liked it but it could use more sample problems
I wanted to learn something about informatics...The book was easy to understand but it lacked practice problems... This is not a religious book...Obviously the book takes an evolutionary stand point since the entire concept of bioinformatics is based mainly on evolutionary similarities of proteins and other cellular components. If you are new to bioinformatics but have some understanding of Biology, then you should get this book...

An expensive hodgepodge
Books about bioinformatics are as diverse as the field itself. It may not be possible to do justice to this new and exciting field in 168 pages. My concern with this book, however, lies not with the choice of topics, but rather with its incoherent presentation. Distracting parenthetical remarks pervade the text as in this excerpt from the beginning of the 3rd chapter:"DNA sequences are often found based on predictive tools, meaning that sequence similarities of newly discovered genes yield information about their physiological functions and structures, PCR (polymerase chain reaction), finding sequence fragments of significance (how is significance judged? By predictive biology, once again), finding distribution of genes or mRNAs (often an indicator of gene activity in an organism), and amplifying the amount of DNA for purification, sequencing, and mutational analysis." (p. 143).

Chapter 5 entitled "The Computer Revolution in Neurobiology" we find the following unexpected text: "One rationale for human cloning is that it could alleviate many of the problems associated with our unique characteristics. The genetic information (DNA) of a cloned organ is identical to that of the individual needing the organ. Hence, the cloned organ would be accepted by the individual's body as part of itself and would have a smaller probability of rejection." (p. 159). [Nevermind the enormous ethical implications!]

Throughout, one has the sense of a book rushed to market to take advantage of an exciting scientific trend. The book presents nothing that can't be found on-line and it gives readers no sense of the computational challenges of the field. ...

I own this title in my library and is well worth the money!
I am a novice in bioinformatics and have found this book to be invaluable in getting me started without intimidating me. I have owned the book for over a year and still find it very useful but I am waiting for an update to this title soon since I have enjoyed the organization of the book. It has given me a global picture of informatics and chapters with specific examples and applications. I am sure a second edition to this book will be well recieved by the audience and I am hoping to see it soon since the new bioinformatics book I have just purchased is not to my liking.

Solid starting place for a novice
I'm always looking for a good guide book for undergrads and biocomputing novices that covers the basics without getting carried away with algorithmic minutiae. I found this book a fair place to start for those who have no idea of what is out there. The tools and Web sites described are mainstays and likely won't be going anywhere. However, if you are already moderately knowledgeable, you will exhaust this book immediately. The nature of the field is constant movement toward newer and more thorough tools. This is not a users' guide: go to the referenced Web sites themselves to get the most up to date, accurate information.

I would refer a naive beginner to get this book at the library, but I wouldn't put it on my own shelf.

Bioinformatics to the max!
This is truly a great book.I had always wondered about biological research and the use of computers.The future of medicine and mankind will be changed drastically by new advances created by the coupling of scienceand technology.Bioinformatics is the wave of the future and Rashidi showsin his book that he is far ahead of his time.He has written the kind ofbook, a "gold standard" if you will, upon which all other textsin the field shall be judged.If I were taking a class which covered thesubject of bioinformatics, I would definitely want this to be my resourcefor information.Clear, concise and unpretentious, Rashidi lays everythingout vividly so that anyone from the undergraduate to the post-graduatestudent may marvel at the wonders of bioinformatics.My only complaint isthat I think it should have been titled "The Bible ofBioinformatics" because its wealth of information is so epic andcomplete.There is no need to look for another book.Rashidi's has itall! ... Read more

Book Description
Serving as a single up-to-date reference source, Grid Computing for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology provides details on modern and ongoing research on Grid applications. The book specifically discusses bio-ontology and data mining; data visualization; DNA assembly, clustering, and mapping; molecular evolution and phylogeny; gene expression and micro-arrays; gene identification and annotation; molecular modeling and simulation; molecular sequence analysis; protein structure prediction; sequence assembly; sequence search and alignment; bio data intensive applications; Grid infrastructures; middleware; and tools for bio data. ... Read more

Book Description
A behind-the-scenes look at the most lucrative discipline within biotechnology
Bioinformatics represents a new area of opportunity for investors and industry participants. Companies are spending billions on the potentially lucrative products that will come from bioinformatics. This book looks at what companies like Merck, Glaxo SmithKline Beecham, and Celera, and hospitals are doing to maneuver themselves to leadership positions in this area. Filled with in-depth insights and surprising revelations, Digital Code of Life examines the personalities who have brought bioinformatics to life and explores the commercial applications and investment opportunities of the most lucrative discipline within genomics.
Glyn Moody (London, UK) has published numerous articles in Wired magazine. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Rebel Code.Download Description
A behind-the-scenes look at the most lucrative discipline within biotechnology
Bioinformatics represents a new area of opportunity for investors and industry participants. Companies are spending billions on the potentially lucrative products that will come from bioinformatics. This book looks at what companies like Merck, Glaxo SmithKline Beecham, and Celera, and hospitals are doing to maneuver themselves to leadership positions in this area. Filled with in-depth insights and surprising revelations, Digital Code of Life examines the personalities who have brought bioinformatics to life and explores the commercial applications and investment opportunities of the most lucrative discipline within genomics.
Glyn Moody (London, UK) has published numerous articles in Wired magazine. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Rebel Code. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Worth Reading
As the other reviewer notes, this book does what it's meant to do: give you an overview of the myriad developments in bioinformatics since its inception.It's fairly engaging, though, for me, that's mostly due to the subject matter itself and not the writer's abilities.This is why I gave it four stars instead of five.

The scientific explanations are usually not that great, even if the concepts aren't that difficult to understand given some understanding of the underlying biological concepts.I had to quit reading and go in Wikipedia to understand some of these concepts because I felt the author's explanations were just unnecessarily confusing.And the author often decides to jump from the narrative and devote a page to the science, which isn't a horrible thing to do, but I feel maybe the science could have either been explained more succinctly or integrated with the narrative better.So that, along with the worst proofreading I've encountered in a published book (multiple instances of missing words [like 'a' or 'the'], missing punctuation [periods, parentheses], inconsistent punctuation, etc.), prompts me to give a four-star rating.

That said, it's certainly worth reading; and, from what I've surmised, it's the only published book on the history of bioinformatics (that isn't solely concerned with the Human Genome Project), so it's not like there are (m)any alternatives.

I'll also note that even though this was published a few years ago, it feels slightly outdated already due to the perpetual advances in throughput and methodology in the field.A new edition (at least with an afterword explaining recent advances) would be nice.

A delightful reading
It's been a while since I read this book. So I try to get back on my impressions.
The book has a good sketch on the key developments of modern genomics and bioinformatics, full of gossips and vivid stories. It is a very difficult job to write a history or something close to that for a fast evolving field. And there are limited accounts on the business side too. To her credit, the author has done an excellent job.
I had concerns over the accuracy and coverage of some contents and opinions. But given the breadth of the book, probably this is how good it can get. Other than that, it was a very interesting reading. I recommended it to a friend right the way. ... Read more

Book Description

This book looks at the mathematical foundations of the models currently in use. This is crucial for the correct interpretation of the outputs of the models. A bioinformatician should be able not only to use software packages, but also to know the mathematics behind these packages.

Book Description
Probabilistic Modelling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics has been written for researchers and students in statistics, machine learning, and the biological sciences. The first part of this book provides a self-contained introduction to the methodology of Bayesian networks. The following parts demonstrate how these methods are applied in bioinformatics and medical informatics. All three fields - the methodology of probabilistic modeling, bioinformatics, and medical informatics - are evolving very quickly. The text should therefore be seen as an introduction, offering both elementary tutorials as well as more advanced applications and case studies. ... Read more

Book Description
The Bioconductor project was initiated in 2001 to provide a resource of R packages that specifically address bioinformatics problems. Written by the leader of this project and the original developer of the R software, Bioinformatics with R provides an overview of techniques to develop R programming skills for bioinformatics. The book presents comprehensive coverage of a broad range of key topics, including R language fundamentals, object-oriented programming in R, foreign language interfaces, building R packages, handling different data technologies, and debugging. It includes a number of detailed illustrative bioinformatics examples as well as exercises to demonstrate techniques. ... Read more

Book Description

Confused by cryptic computer programs, algorithms and formulae?

Book Description
The book is comprised of carefully developed and edited contributions by leading educators that explain and apply CI methods to central bioinformatics problems such as drug docking, sequence alignment, phylogenetic reconstruction, metabolic network inference, and data mining of biological databases.

The book is accompanied by a web-site that includes a variety of datasets and a selection of software for the CI techniques covered in the book. The book and the site will include "Challenge Problems" whose progress is reported and tracked on the site. ... Read more

Book Description

Bioinformatics is a rapidly developing field. Data volumes continue to grow and there is an increasing breadth of available data, including sequence, gene expression, protein, metabolite and phenotypic data. Novel databases are being developed for specific species or experiment types. These databases and tools may greatly assist in the application of plant biotechnology, though they require a basic set of skills to identify and utilize the most appropriate resource.

Book Description
Recent developments in molecular biology, genomics, proteomics, and other areas have produced a wealth of experimental data on sequences and three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules. As a result, the employment of various computational methods of analysis to obtain useful information is now a major new discipline: bioinformatics.
The Dictionary of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology provides a vital reference for important terms, offering students and researchers a convenient summary of the core knowledge of the field. With concise and accurate definitions of over 600 words, phrases, and concepts, this volume:
* Offers thorough A-Z coverage
* Lists references and Internet links
* Incorporates cross-referencing throughout
* Features a comprehensive index of topics
Anyone working in basic sciences and clinical research today will find the Dictionary of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology to be an essential companion. ... Read more

Book Description
Bioinformatics is contributing to some of the most important advances in medicine and biology. At the forefront of this exciting new subject are techniques known as artificial intelligence which are inspired by the way in which nature solves the problems it faces. This book provides a unique insight into the complex problems of bioinformatics and the innovative solutions which make up ‘intelligent bioinformatics’.

Intelligent Bioinformatics requires only rudimentary knowledge of biology, bioinformatics or computer science and is aimed at interested readers regardless of discipline. Three introductory chapters on biology, bioinformatics and the complexities of search and optimisation equip the reader with the necessary knowledge to proceed through the remaining eight chapters, each of which is dedicated to an intelligent technique in bioinformatics. 

The book also contains many links to software and information available on the internet, in academic journals and beyond, making it an indispensable reference for the 'intelligent bioinformatician'.

Intelligent Bioinformatics will appeal to all postgraduate students and researchers in bioinformatics and genomics as well as to computer scientists interested in these disciplines, and all natural scientists with large data sets to analyse.

Download Description
Bioinformatics is contributing to some of the most important advances in medicine and biology. At the forefront of this exciting new subject are techniques known as artificial intelligence which are inspired by the way in which nature solves the problems it faces. This book provides a unique insight into the complex problems of bioinformatics and the innovative solutions which make up intelligent bioinformatics Intelligent Bioinformatics requires only rudimentary knowledge of biology, bioinformatics or computer science and is aimed at interested readers regardless of discipline. Three introductory chapters on biology, bioinformatics and the complexities of search and optimisation equip the reader with the necessary knowledge to proceed through the remaining eight chapters, each of which is dedicated to an intelligent technique in bioinformatics. The book also contains many links to software and information available on the internet, in academic journals and beyond, making it an indispensable reference for the 'intelligent bioinformatician'. Intelligent Bioinformaticswill appeal to all postgraduate students and researchers in bioinformatics and genomics as well as to computer scientists interested in these disciplines, and all natural scientists with large data sets to analyse. ... Read more

Book Description
  “The development and application of bioinformatics tools to basic and translational cancer research is, in fact, a rapidly expanding field that deserves a timely review. Therefore, a publication of this type is needed. The editors have done an excellent job in recruiting well-established scientists to author the various chapters of the book.”  Dieter Naf, Jackson Laboratory, USA

Cancer bioinformatics is now emerging as a new interdisciplinary field, which is facilitating an unprecedented synthesis of knowledge arising from the life and clinical sciences.

This groundbreaking title provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the enormous range of bioinformatics for cancer therapy development from the laboratory to clinical trials. It functions as a guide to integrated data exploitation and synergistic knowledge discovery, and support the consolidation of the interdisciplinary research community involved.

... Read more

Book Description

This monograph addresses, in a systematic and pedagogical manner, the mathematical methods and the algorithms required to deal with the molecularly based problems of bioinformatics. The book will be useful to students, research scientists and practitioners of bioinformatics and related fields, especially those who are interested in the underlying mathematical methods and theory. Among the methods presented in the book, prominent attention is given to pair-wise and multiple sequence alignment algorithms, stochastic models of mutations, modulus structure theory and protein configuration analysis. Strong links to the molecular structures of proteins, DNA and other biomolecules and their analyses are developed. In particular, for proteins an in-depth exposition of secondary structure prediction methods should be a valuable tool in both molecular biology and in applications to rational drug design. The book can also be used as a textbook and for this reason most of the chapters include exercises and problems at the level of a graduate program in bioinformatics.