Molecular Biology

by Robert Franklin Weaver

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math
ISBN: 0073525324

Check price @ amazon.com , amazon.ca , amazon.co.uk

Book Description

Molecular Biology, 4/e by Robert Weaver, is designed for an introductory course in molecular biology. Molecular Biology 5/e focuses on the fundamental concepts of molecular biology emphasizing experimentation. In particular author, Rob Weaver, focuses on the study of genes and their activities at the molecular level. Through the combination of excellent illustrations and clear, succinct writing students are presented fundamental molecular biology concepts.

About the Author

Received BS in Chemistry from The College of Wooster in 1964 Postdoctoral work at UC-San Francisco with William Rutter American Cancer Society Research Scholar for two years.

Customer Reviews

Most classes I have taken at the undergraduate level have only presented the facts and theories of molecular and cell biology. Dr. Weaver's text, and the two classes I have taken from him, have given me insight into how those facts were obtained. His text presents the questions of scientists, why they were asked, and how they were answered, including interpretation of the data. This is very important to someone training to be a research scientist.

Yes, it may be understandable only to upper level students, but that is for whom the book is meant. The first two or three years of college should give a student enough background. This book will help elaborate on that information, and more importantly, answer the why and how.

I am a faculty member at a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania and will be using this textbook for the third year in a row. While the style of the text IS difficult for students at the beginning, as they become comfortable with it, they use it more and more as a resource. Every year I have the students evaluate the textbook and this book has received high marks both years I have used it. An instructor using this textbook needs to spend more time discussing the details with the students in the beginning, which decrease the total amount of material you can cover during the semester. However, after using this textbook, students can pick up the primary literature and are quite conversant with it. My class consists of students ranging from second semester sophomores through second semester seniors. If you just want to lecture to students, this may not be the textbook for you to use, but if you want to engage your students in the ways that molecular biologists solve problems, this textbook is an excellent choice.

I have used this text as an undergrad and now as a grad student (in the interest of full disclosure, I am currently taking a class with Dr. Weaver and we are using this text; surprise, surprise). I found the use of experimental data to be extremely helpful, especially since molecular biology is an experimental field. It really gives one a feel for how we arrived at what we know and what was the thinking that led to it. That said, this is probably not an ideal text for an introduction to molecular biology. Students using this text should have some familiarity with genetics and cell biology. When I used this text as an undergrad (at a liberal arts college in Kansas) I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of experimental information at first, but I grew to appreciate it greatly. It allowed me to better develop analytical skills that are important for the field. On the whole, this has been probably one of the best books I have seen in this field.

I strongly agree the opinion of a reader in Indiana, as you can see the following. I think this may not a good choice for undergraduate students who don't have a strong background of molecular biology. However, it would be good source for any new coming grad students. Because this book would give the grad students an opportunity how well to interpret the data and results in research papers. Sometimes when I read this book, I feel I'm doing a crtical reading on research papers. I've corresponded Dr. Weaver (he's a prof. in Dept. of Biochem and Mol Biology, Univ of Kansas now) for twice to give my comments and he said he's prepapring and revising for new edition which would be appeared next summer(2001). If you're a grad student who is looking for other styled book unlike "Genes VII", "Molecular Cell Biology" etc., I would recommend this one.

I teach molecular biology at a respected liberal arts college in Indiana. As a first year molecular instructor I went looking for advice on textbooks. Under recommendations from the previous instructor of this course I chose Weaver's book as an alternative to the now aging Albert Text. Frankly, the text has been a flop.

Why? Because it assumes a certain level of understanding of molecular coming into the course. A highly motivated student who has a strong background in research will enjoy this book, but as a general text it just doesn't work well. I find my students are just lost in the chapters. They are getting bogged down trying to work through all the gels and are missing the concepts being presented. I find that I must use figures from Albert's or Stryer (Biochem) to make the concepts clear. Perhaps it would be a good grad textbook with a student population that has an excellent understanding of 'gel science'.

Mostly I find it is just missing in general concepts. They summarize sections up in little orange boxes at the end which seems to be all the class seems to understand from the readings. I think they need to put more effort into making the general text more understandable to students by working on the model end and less on the experimental end.

I am not alone in my poor evaluation of this text. A prof who has been teaching the class for 15 years finally made the switch to this book this year to replace Albert. She gave up on Weaver two weeks into the class because of her class' fustration.

I would recommend this book ONLY to those who have first read it and feel it is going to be PERSONALLY useful.

Unlike famous Lodish's and Albert's molecular biology texts, this wonderful work of Weaver is focused mainly on methodology used in daily life of almost all molecular biologists. The approach that Dr. Weaver used to explain concepts in this text is unique and very effective. I find that this text not only helps me understand the difficult concepts of molecular biology, but also teaches me to interpret data in the scientific papers. Even though the materials presented in the text do not cover many aspects of the field, this text presents almost all important concepts that undergraduate students majoring in CMB, Biochemistry or Biology should know. This book is an excellent one.