Molecular Biology: Principles of Genome Function

The biological world operates on a multitude of scales - from molecules to cells to tissues to organisms to ecosystems. Throughout all these levels runs a common thread: the communication and onward passage of information - from cell to cell, from organism to organism and, ultimately, from generation to generation. This information is stored, at the most fundamental level, in each living cell in our body. But how does this information - no more than a static repository of data - come alive to govern the processes that constitute life? The answer lies in the concerted action of molecular components which cooperate in a series of ingenious processes to bring the information deposited in each of us, in our genome, to life. These components and processes lie at the heart of one of the most endlessly fascinating subjects to engage the minds of scientists today: molecular biology. Molecular Biology: Principles of Genome Function offers a fresh, distinctive approach to the teaching of molecular biology. It is an approach that reflects the challenge of teaching a subject that is in many ways unrecognizable from the molecular biology of the 20th century - a discipline in which our understanding has advanced immeasurably, but about which many intriguing questions remain to be answered. It is written with several guiding themes in mind: · A focus on key principles, rather than an attempt to offer exhaustive detail, provides a robust conceptual framework on which students can build a solid understanding of the discipline; · An emphasis on the commonalities that exist between the three kingdoms of life, and the discussion of differences between the three kingdoms where such differences offer instructive insights into molecular processes and components, gives students an accurate depiction of our current understanding of the conserved nature of molecular biology, and the differences that underpin biological diversity; · An integrated approach demonstrates how certain molecular phenomena have diverse impacts on genome function by presenting them as themes that recur throughout the book, rather than as artificially separated topics. At heart, molecular biology is an experimental science, and a central element to the understanding of molecular biology is an appreciation of the approaches taken to yield the information from which concepts and principles are deduced. However, a mass of experimental evidence can make the grasping of the central ideas and paradigms that the experimental evidence has allowed us to elucidate more difficult. Molecular Biology responds to this challenge by complementing its coverage of key concepts in the main body of the text with separate Experimental Approach panels, which branch off from the text in a clearly-signposted way. These Experimental Approach panels describe pieces of research that have been undertaken, and which have been particularly valuable in elucidating difference aspects of molecular biology. Beyond this, Molecular Biology further enriches the learning experience with full-colour, custom-drawn artwork; end-of-chapter summaries; relevant suggested further readings grouped by topic; and an extensive glossary of key terms. Among the students being taught today are the molecular biologists of tomorrow; these individuals will be in a position to ask fascinating questions about fields whose complexity and sophistication become more apparent with each year that passes. Molecular Biology: Principles of Genome Function is the perfect introduction to this challenging, dynamic, but ultimately fascinating discipline. Online Resource Centre The Online Resource Centre to accompany Molecular Biology: Principles of Genome Function features For registered adopters of the text: Electronic artwork: Figures from the book are available to download, for use in lectures. Journal Club: Suggested research papers and discussion questions linked to topics featured in the book build on the Experimental Approach panels in the book itself, to guide the process of assimilating knowledge from the research literature For everyone: New and noteworthy: A note of key highlights from the field of molecular biology since the book's publication are updated for the start of each semester. Library of molecular structures: A library of three-dimensional models of key molecular structures featured in the book allow students to investigate these molecular components in more detail.

Nancy L Craig received an AB in Biology and Chemistry in 1973 from Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Biochemistry in 1980 at Cornell University, where she worked on the role of RecA function in the lysogenic induction of bacteriophage lambda. During postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1980-1984, she studied the mechanism of bacteriophage lambda site-specific recombination. In 1984, she joined the faculty at the University of California San Francisco and began her studies of the transposition of the bacterial transposon Tn7. She spent a sabbatical in 1989-1990 with Allan Spradling at the Carnegie Institution of Embryology studying P element transposition in Drosophila. In 1991, she moved to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, where she is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics, and continues her studies on Tn7 transposition. Orna Cohen-Fix graduated from the Tel Aviv University, Israel in 1987 and received a PhD in biochemistry with Zvi Livneh at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in 1994. After a post-doctoral fellowship at the Carnegie Institution of Washington with Doug Koshland she moved to the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases where she is now a Senior Investigator. Her research focuses on two main topics: cell cycle regulation and nuclear architecture, using budding yeast as a model organism. Rachel Green graduated in chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1986 and then completed her doctoral work in biological chemistry in 1992 with Jack W Szostak at Harvard University studying catalytic RNA. She then did postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Harry F Noller at the University of California, Santa Cruz, studying the role played by the ribosomal RNAs in the function of the ribosome. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her work continues to focus on the mechanism of translation. Carol W Greider received a BA from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1983. In 1987, she received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley where she and her advisor, Elizabeth Blackburn, discovered telomerase, the enzyme that maintains telomere length. In 1988, she went to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as an independent Fellow and remained as a Staff Scientist until 1997, when she moved to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is currently a Professor and Director of the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and her work focuses on telomerase and the role of telomeres in chromosome stability and cancer. She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and is the winner of the 2006 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak for the discovery of telomerase. Gisela Storz graduated in biochemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1984 and received a PhD in biochemistry with Bruce Ames at the University of California at Berkeley in 1988. After postdoctoral fellowships with Sankar Adhya and Fred Ausubel, she moved to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development where she is now a Senior Investigator. Her research is focused on understanding gene regulation in response to environmental stress as well as elucidating the functions of small regulatory RNAs.
Cynthia Wolberger received her undergraduate degree in Physics from Cornell University in 1979 and a doctorate in Biophysics from Harvard University in 1987, where she worked with Stephen C Harrison and Mark Ptashne on the structure of a phage repressor bound to DNA. She went on to study the structures of eukaryotic protein-DNA complexes as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Carl O Pabo at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is now Professor of Biophysics & Biophysical Chemistry and Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research focus is on the structural and biochemical mechanisms underlying combinatorial regulation of transcription.