Signal Transduction Education
Book Peer Reviews

University of Kentucky Medical Center Library "DOODY REVIEW" ****

“Signal Transduction”

Reviewer: Alvin Telser, PhD(Northwestern University Medical School

{ Description } This is a basic and comprehensive textbook on the subject of signal transduction.

{ Purpose } The authors intend the book to be used as a textbook in an advanced undergraduate or graduate course in this subject area. They also state that they hope and expect it will be interesting and useful to scientists at many levels. Signal transduction has become one of the most active and interesting areas of research in modern cell and molecular biology, which makes this book timely and extremely worthwhile. It is very well written and fully meets the author's objectives.

{ Audience } The major audience for this book are students who will use the book in a formal course on signal transduction, but it has a great deal of important and useful information and is sufficiently well written that many other scientists will find it useful. The authors are very knowledgeable in the subject area.

{ Features } The book begins with a very interesting historical perspective and proceeds to discuss all the major areas of signal transduction. The authors employ an excellent balance of experimental data and full color schematic diagrams that will greatly assist readers in understanding the material. There are a substantial number of explanatory margin notes that provide definitions, historical background, or points of general interest that add to the interest and understanding of material in the text.

{ Assessment } This book is an excellent addition to the line of textbooks that are useful for courses in modern cell and molecular biology. The abundant use of graphics is outstanding. The writing is excellent. This should become the standard textbook in the area of signal transduction.

amazon.com ****

“A Comprehensive Signal Transduction Textbook at Last”

Reviewer: Michael B. Yaffe from MIT, Cambridge, MA United States

Anyone who has surveyed the collection of existing textbooks on signal transduction realizes that they come in two basic flavours - those that cover a lot of ground in an extremely superficial fashion, and those that delve in depth into a few narrow area while leaving vast tracts of the subject untouched. In addition, most texts are written on a chapter-by-chapter basis by different authors, leaving these texts more a collection of essays than a comprehensive review.

Gomperts, Kramer and Tatham's book has succeeded dramatically where most of the others have failed. The text is strikingly comprehensive, covering nearly all major areas of signal transduction including receptors, G proteins, calcium signalling, protein and lipid kinases and phosphatases, growth factors and cell adhesion. It is the first book I have seen that integrates historical, pharmacological, and physiological findings in these areas with the biochemistry and fine molecular detail of the molecules involved. Written with a single voice, the chapters integrate elegantly with one another, and provide the reader with both broad and comprehensive viewpoints - one sees the forest AND the trees!

Remarkably current and up-to-date, the book promises to be a core text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in cell signalling and molecular cell biology, and a valuable reference book for all scientists whose work involves mechanisms of cell communication.

amazon.com ****

“Comprehensive, up-date info, and easy to read”

Reviewer: PhD student studying cell biology, July 18, 2002

This book gave me a broad specs about what the signal transduction is from historical stand points to therapeutic application. It was very fun to read the history how scientists discovered some growth factors, receptors and so on. This book covers G-protein, Ca signaling, receptor, kinase, phosphatase, cell adhesion signaling, signaling motifs. The format of each chapter looks like Nature Review series, in other words, nice cartoons and a short comment for biological term to understand what that is easily. In addition, this is a comprehensive book and also has up-date information about each signaling pathway.