Microbiology: an Evolving Science (09 - Old Edition)

First, an emphasis on current research, genomics, and molecular genetics enables students to learn how microbiologists think as they master the discipline's foundational topics. Second, a stunning and consistently executed art program helps students visualize key microbiological processes and structures.

The primary goal of Slonczewski (Kenyon College) and Foster (U. of South Alabama) in fashioning this textbook on microbiology was to balance coverage of microbial ecology and medical microbiology. Part of the way they do this is to "explore the origin of life as a dynamic story of discovery that integrates microfossil data with physiology and molecular biology." They first cover the microbial cell in chapters discussing the origin and discovery of microbial life; observation of the microbial cell; cell structure and function; bacterial culture, growth, and development; environmental influences and control of microbial growth; and virus structure and function. Chapters follow on genomes and chromosomes; transcription, translation, and bioinformatics; gene transfer, mutations, and genome evolution; molecular regulation; viral molecular biology; and molecular techniques and biotechnology. Energetics and catabolism; respiration, lithotrophy, and photolysis; biosynthesis; and food and industrial microbiology are covered next, followed by discussion of bacteria, archaeal, and eukaryotic diversity; microbial ecology; and microbes and the global environment. The final chapters turn to the fields of medicine and immunology and cover human microflora and nonspecific host defenses, the adaptive immune response, microbial pathogenesis, microbial diseases, antimicrobial chemotherapy, and clinical microbiology and epidemiology. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Microbiology: An Evolving Science promotes a clear understanding of this rapidly advancing field in two distinctive ways.

First, an emphasis on current research, genomics, and molecular genetics enables students to learn how microbiologists think as they master the discipline's foundational topics. Second, a stunning and consistently executed art program helps students visualize key microbiological processes and structures.

Joan L. Slonczewski received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, where she studied bacterial motility with Robert M. Macnab. After postdoctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania, she went on to teach undergraduate microbiology at Kenyon College, where she has earned a Silver Medal in the National Professor of the Year program of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. She has published numerous research articles with undergraduate coauthors on bacterial pH regulation and is the author of five science fiction novels, including A Door into Ocean, which earned the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. She served as At-large Member representing Divisions on the Council Policy Committee of the American Society for Microbiology and is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.John W. Foster received his B.S. from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (now the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia) and his Ph.D. from Hahnemann University (now Drexel University School of Medicine), also in Philadelphia, where he worked with Albert G. Moat. After postdoctoral work at Georgetown University, he joined the Marshall University School of Medicine in West Virginia and is currently teaching at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile, Alabama. Dr. Foster has coauthored three editions of the textbook Microbial Physiology and has published over a hundred journal articles describing the physiology and genetics of microbial stress responses. He has served as Chair of the Microbial Physiology and Metabolism division of the American Society for Microbiology and was a member of the editorial advisory board of the journal Molecular Microbiology.