Physical biology of the cell /

This upper-level, biophysical course resource signals a shift from emphasizing traditional biophysical topics such as thermodynamics and enzyme kinetics to more topical issues such as single molecule mechanics, molecular bending, and membrane structure. This shift is warranted since the trend in many leading university biophysics programs is to embrace more biologically related problems. This is one of the few books that makes an effort to integrate molecular physiology with modern biophysics. In this 20-chapter work, Phillips (CalTech), Kondev (Brandeis), and Theriot (Stanford Univ. School of Medicine) deal with somewhat simple interactions such as solute-solvent up through quite complex systems involving linked networks. The authors show and discuss actual experimental data, and reduce cellular processes to mathematical expressions whenever possible. A nice feature is that the descriptions of the mathematics used to describe the particular phenomenon are introduced and reviewed separately before being applied to the biological problem. All chapters contain problem sets as well as suggested readings. The time and effort put into this book are readily apparent. This work has some real meat to it and should be adopted by a number of universities. It can also serve as an excellent reference for the individual topics covered. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through professional collections. J. M. Tomich Kansas State University