Molecular Biology

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 ofmolecular 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