Molecular Cell Biology

This is a very comprehensive book about molecular cell biology. It starts from the very basics of chemistry and protein, and ends with a very clear molecular description of cell cycles and cancer. I wouldn't recommend it as a textbook for someone who's just learning the basics, especially if it is for a class, since the amount of information is sometimes too much to handle.Pros:1- Extensive coverage of most major topics in cell biology.2- Impressive level of detail, down to the function of the secondary structures in proteins.3- Very interesting explanations about how things were discovered.4- Each chapter section is divided into points. The authors show you how every point was proved. For example, to tell you vesicles need this protein to bind to other membranes, they tell you that some biologist created mutants that were lacking this protein and noticed that the vesicles were formed but were unable to bind, and a reference is present at the end of the chapter.5- Small summaries at the end of each section.6- Kept really up to date. Current articles in Nature & Science magazine usually take over where this book left off.Cons:1- There are some exercises at the end of each chapter, but they're too simple to be of any value to you except reviewing the high level concepts. There is only one "Analyzing the Data" exercise which brings some value. If you haven't memorized every single protein, you can always flip back a few pages and read off the name that you're looking for. The study guide that comes with it also doesn't have very much information. You can look at their website online but will only find multiple choice questions. The Alberts book + study guide on the other hand, does give you about 100 exercises per chapter, and that really helped me understand certain concepts.2- The book is nearly a thousand pages long and it is presented in two-column, small font mode. I found that it took me several hours to read through a single chapter.3- Somewhat inconsistent writing. Some chapters adopt a very narrative description that is smooth and easy to read. Other chapters just name every single protein involved and through a disordered approach expect you to put things together. Not to mention many of the proteins have the same prefix but different numbers at the end "Tom40, Tom22, Tom76". Such data would look much better tabulated.

I used this book as the text for a UC Santa Cruz extension course in molecular cell biology. I read about 2/3 of it for course reading assignments and I found it to be excellent. It's clearly and well written but is definitely information dense. You really have to focus closely while you're reading it. Expect to need to read most sections at least twice to absorb the material.The diagrams are plentiful, are well drawn and must also be studied carefully since they contain information not included in the body of the text itself.Information has obviously been updated as new versions of the book have appeared. This 4th edition has many references to publications as recent as 1999.The animations in the accompanying CD are sometimes useful. A good example is the animation in chapter 22 of cell-cell adhesion in leukocyte extravasation.

Even though I am a mathematician and not a biologist, I absolutly love reading like this book. I read 'The Cell' when it came out in the early 80s. It was a life changing experience. The diagrams alone in these texts tell a wonderful story. I bought 'Molecular Cell Biology' to compare with The Cell. Both books are wonderful. I would hate to say what a low price I paid for my used copy. It's worth more than 10 times that amount. To me such books are a treasure! They are priceless.Thanks very much.

In my opinion the product is at excellent condition as it was described. There are just minor defect on the bottom two corners of the cover but nothing noticeable. The slightest problem was the fact that the delivery was delayed for two weeks. But apart from this I am satisfied with the product.

I just repurchased this 4th edition after realizing that the later editions of Molecular Cell Biology have damped down on biophysical and biochemical aspects of cell biology; much of the equations have been removed from this classic textbook in the later editions. It is a common problem across most biochemistry and cell-biology texts these days - it only serves to dumb-down the current generation of graduate students.

the book is ok but need to updated it ok to have in your library came fast and well condition book like i said need to be updated

I like this book. There's a good amount of content, accompanied with excellent illustrations. However, the organization is pretty bad -- instead of describing processes such as transcription in a natural sequence, the authors jump around from one thing to another, making it hard to find things. The index isn't comprehensive enough, either.one more caveat: my Cell Phys professor, who's a botanist, complained about the lack of coverage of plant cells, and he's right.

Good

Bought this book for BSc Biology, second year study, it was great value for what I got but unfortunately the content was not relevant or in depth enough for my course!Xx

good

When it arrived the book was in perfect condition. Highly recommended.

This book has a few items underlined which I believe will be in my assignments for year two thanks for doing my research :)

Excellent companion to course