Comprehensive Biological Catalysis: A Mechanistic Reference (4 Volume Set)

Rating:
Summary: An Authoritative Resource on Enzymes & Metabolic Inhibitors
Review: Few would quarrel with the assertion that the successes of modern biochemistry and molecular biology spring from the growth of our in-depth awareness of enzyme mechanism and control. The ability to design new therapeutic agents, the creation of catalytic antibodies, the development of modified organisms that contain reorganized metabolic pathways for organic synthesis and bioremediation, and the ability to trim, cut, and redesign DNA molecules---all of these advances are the product of the systematic characterization of enzyme kinetics and mechanism. In this four-volume series, the editors have brought together the latest achievements and perspectives of the acknowledged leaders in the field. This series treats enzymes by the type of organic reaction, thereby allowing the reader to integrate the wide-ranging information and data about enzymes that are related more by their catalytic mechanisms than by their position in otherwise diverse metabolic pathways. The coverage is uniformly excellent, and the lexicon in vol. IV allows one to gain familiarity with some of the conceptual underpinning and jargon of the field. The editors, Dr. Michael Sinnott, Dr. C. David Garner, Dr. Eric First, and Dr. Gideon Davies all deserve praise for providing the reader with a virtually flawless reference book. They are also undoubtedly responsible for the uniformly high quality of the diagrams, chemical structures, as well as the three-dimensional color plates of enzymes and active sites. Perhaps, the only weakness is that one must always keep vol. IV close by, because none of the other volumes contains a subject index. (For the advertised price of $899, surely the publisher could have included a comprehensive index in each of the volumes. It's not too late to offer this feature in future printings.) Few individuals can afford to purchase treatises like "Comprehensive Biological Catalysis", but everyone responsible for the reading rooms in biochemistry departments, pharmacology departments, and medicinal chemistry departments should greet this four-volume series as a special opportunity to educate graduate students, post-docs, and the faculty.

Rating:
Summary: An Authoritative Resource on Enzymes & Metabolic Inhibitors
Review: Few would quarrel with the assertion that the successes of modern biochemistry and molecular biology spring from the growth of our in-depth awareness of enzyme mechanism and control. The ability to design new therapeutic agents, the creation of catalytic antibodies, the development of modified organisms that contain reorganized metabolic pathways for organic synthesis and bioremediation, and the ability to trim, cut, and redesign DNA molecules---all of these advances are the product of the systematic characterization of enzyme kinetics and mechanism. In this four-volume series, the editors have brought together the latest achievements and perspectives of the acknowledged leaders in the field. This series treats enzymes by the type of organic reaction, thereby allowing the reader to integrate the wide-ranging information and data about enzymes that are related more by their catalytic mechanisms than by their position in otherwise diverse metabolic pathways. The coverage is uniformly excellent, and the lexicon in vol. IV allows one to gain familiarity with some of the conceptual underpinning and jargon of the field. The editors, Dr. Michael Sinnott, Dr. C. David Garner, Dr. Eric First, and Dr. Gideon Davies all deserve praise for providing the reader with a virtually flawless reference book. They are also undoubtedly responsible for the uniformly high quality of the diagrams, chemical structures, as well as the three-dimensional color plates of enzymes and active sites. Perhaps, the only weakness is that one must always keep vol. IV close by, because none of the other volumes contains a subject index. (For the advertised price of $899, surely the publisher could have included a comprehensive index in each of the volumes. It's not too late to offer this feature in future printings.) Few individuals can afford to purchase treatises like "Comprehensive Biological Catalysis", but everyone responsible for the reading rooms in biochemistry departments, pharmacology departments, and medicinal chemistry departments should greet this four-volume series as a special opportunity to educate graduate students, post-docs, and the faculty.