| Human Genetics |
| © Springer-Verlag 2003 |
| 10.1007/s00439-003-0953-1 |
Paul Dear1
| (1) | MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QH, UK |
| Paul Dear Email: phd@mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk Fax: +44-1223-412178 |
Received: 25 February 2003 Published online: 13 May 2003
This is a book that largely fails to live up to expectations, but I'm nevertheless going to recommend it — so bear with me and find out why.
The title, Genomic Technologies, and the blurb on the back cover promise a truly comprehensive coverage of the field. It offers to describe "in detail" "all aspects of technology pertaining to genomic studies". Not only this, but the subtitle implies that forthcoming developments will be addressed as well. To cover such a large topic in such depth, breadth and length would be an ambitious undertaking but, with over 400 pages (and few illustrations), perhaps it could be done.
The book, however, does no such thing. What we have is a series of twelve reviews covering topics apparently unconnected beyond their common relevance to genomics. They vary in scope from the broad (automation and robotics, DNA sequence analysis and annotation) to the narrow (three-dimensional arrays); but however you arrange the pieces, they provide much less than contiguous coverage of the field of genomics. Mapping, cloning, sequencing and sequence assembly, for instance, are basic and fundamental operations in analysing any genome, but are either not mentioned or are covered only tangentially in chapters on other subjects. Nor is there any chapter-to-chapter consistency in the style of presentation or depth of coverage: the broader chapters will be accessible to students and those outside the field, whilst the narrower ones will be of more interest to specialists.
What, then, of the "future" promised by the book's subtitle? Again, readers are likely to be disappointed. Some chapters touch on the latest technology and indicate which areas are going to expand, but things that may be heading towards us over the horizon (perhaps single molecule analysis or nano- and micro-fluidic devices) are touched on briefly if at all. This last failure is perhaps excusable — it's all too easy to speculate enthusiastically about the future, but the people who really know where the next breakthrough is coming from are probably not writing book chapters.
After these negative comments, it would be unfair to criticise the editing of the book. It would not, however, be inappropriate to do so. Several of the chapters are rife with typographical and grammatical errors (in one chapter, not a single paragraph escapes unscathed), which are at best annoying and at worst obscure the intended meaning. Other chapters oscillate in style between the formal and the jarringly chummy, contain duplications of material, or are simply in need of restructuring by a caring editor. At the same time, however, some chapters (such as Galas and McCormack's historical perspective, or Kwok's chapter on SNP detection) are models of clarity and good style. The kindest inference is that the touch of the editorial hand has been light, and that we are seeing each chapter very much as it left the author's computer.
So, what's good about this book? Well, it's major failing is also it's strength. The topics, though seemingly picked at random, are nevertheless all interesting and well worth reading as stand-alone reviews. Some (such as Kwok on SNP detection, Meng and Limbach on mass spectrometry, Massion and Gray on molecular cytogenetics, or Mifflin and co-workers on automation) cover topics already well addressed by many recent reviews, but do so in considerable depth, often adding new perspectives which reflect a thorough command of the subject. These chapters also provide a wealth of up-to-date citations to take the reader further, and are excellent introductions to the real challenges and limitations which researchers face. Other chapters are decidedly quirky and are welcome for addressing topics slightly off the mainstream. Henkel's chapter on live cell assays, or Kolchinsky and Mirzabekov's on three-dimensional arrays, for instance, fall into this group. The final chapter, by Yanai, Derti and De Lisi, was one of my favourites. It complements the preceding one on sequence analysis by explaining how cross-genome comparisons of gene content, expression profiles and organisation can give insight into the functions of the many genes that are uncharacterised by conventional approaches.
On balance, I liked this book. It isn't the comprehensive survey of genomic technology that it claims to be but, if your looking for twelve diverse and generally well-written reviews bound into one volume, this will do nicely.