Suggestion for light-weight molecular biology book for comp sci student

[ywhtptgtfo]

Hi folks,

I work as a software developer and we have a co-op student who is leaving us in one month (after his 8 month stay). I'd like to present him with a gift before he leaves to finish the rest of his computer science credits.

It happens that I did all my college degrees (B.sc, M.sc, etc) in biochemistry/molecular biology and he often expressed interest in these subjects. So the gift of choice I have in mind is some moderately-priced book that goes into some details on the more "fun" aspects of biology and present these materials in an engaging way.

Ideally, this book should have some light-weight introductions to the following subjects with a bit of computational tie-backs:

Population genetics
- Pedegrees, Mendelian genetics
- Some of Kimera' stuff

Molecular genetics:
- Nucleic acids
- DNA damage, mutation, cancer
- DNA -> RNA -> Protein
- Epigenetics
- Antiobiotics, antiobiotic resistance

Bioinformatics:
- SNP's
- MSA's

Biotech:
- Protein engineering (i.e. chimeras)

It will be great if you guys have some suggestions on a good book that fit some of these descriptors.

Thanks!

 

[emzie]

As a very light introduction, I'd recommend Dawkins' Ancestor's Tale as a launching point for many fields of biology.

 

[Glassmage]

My main focus is Bioinformatics and Astrobiology at NASA, so I would recommend this http://www.amazon.com/Astrobiology-Introduction-Kevin-W-Plaxco/dp/1421400960

A nice combination of biology and engineering. Maybe it will inspire him to do software/research in protein folding or extremophiles genome analysis.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

My main focus is Bioinformatics and Astrobiology at NASA, so I would recommend this http://www.amazon.com/Astrobiology-Introduction-Kevin-W-Plaxco/dp/1421400960

A nice combination of biology and engineering. Maybe it will inspire him to do software/research in protein folding or extremophiles genome analysis.

I hope that's not too heavy. Genome analysis and protein folding can be a bit on the heavy side but I'll take a look.

 

[GoodGame]

There's some light bioinformatics books for comp science types, some even in the Dummies Guide series (might be insulting though). And not so light ones like Introduction to Bioinformatics by Arthur M. Lesk.

Problem with molecular biology and biochemistry are they are not light subjects even if it's not the hardest of the hard sciences. Light to me are Junior/Senior level text books like Molecular Biology of the Cell.

Probably search Amazon for anything with the phrase "short introduction".

 

[Antilogic]

Only biochem book that I've used is Voet & Voet's massive 1200-some page tome, which I would not recommend as an introductory text.

I've found Kenneth Miller's pop-sci books, for the lack of a better term, to be very informative and interesting. But I wouldn't call those textbooks.