The production of a
good introduction to the field of bioinformatics has been a very difficult task because of the
duality of the target audience. A text that is appropriate for the computer
scientist is typically not good for the biologist, and vice versa. Producing a
primer that is suitable for both has been a target of numerous
authors in the past few years. Furthermore, would the third class
of bioinformatics students be well served; namely, those many bio-science
workers who graduated long before bioinformatics became a standard
part of the curriculum and who now find that their skills need to be updated to
keep up with the times? This second edition is a qualified success. Every
chapter in the second edition appears to be rewritten extensively, and three
useful new chapters have been added. As a result, the new edition tops out at
692 pages, and many of the problems with the first edition have been
rectified. This is designed to be a textbook. There are problem sets at the back
of the chapters as well as separate chapter guides for biologists and computer
scientists that make the notorious bioinformatics learning curve a bit gentler. Working scientists will particularly appreciate the extensive
glossary of terms at the be-ginning of each chapter. Considering the fact that,
for many, bioinformatics appears to be an endless string of incomprehensible
buzzwords, this section alone may justify the cost of the book. Numerous flow
charts serve to explain algorithms in a way that is greatly superior to a
series of long-winded explanations. Several chapters have a page
with web ad-dresses to appropriate and useful sites. One of
the new chapters, and in-deed, a very important one, is the
introduction to the probability and statistics of sequence alignments.
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