Basic Laboratory Methods for Biotechnology

Lisa A. Seidman (Author), Cynthia J. Moore (Author), Cynthia Moore

List Price:   $59.00

Spiral-bound: 751 pages

Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1st edition (January 19, 2000)

ISBN: 0137955359

This excellent lab book emphasizes calculations that students can practice and covers all elements of the laboratory experience like safety, making solutions, volume, mass, pH, and temperature measurement, and the operation of many common laboratory instruments.  It also instructs students on how to keep a notebook, and how to collect and analyze data.  There are sections that are appropriate for a manufacturing curriculum that discuss GMP and ISO 9000.  If a student could master this book, they should be hired immediately.    JdK 

Biotechnology: DNA to Protein: A Laboratory Project in Molecular Biology
Teresa Thiel, Shirley Bissen, Eilene Lyone

List Price:   $75.30

Spiral-bound: 192 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Science/Engineering/Math; Spiral edition (August 18, 2001)

ISBN: 0072416645

Other Editions: Paperback | All Editions

This book serves as the lab manual for one of the Solano College laboratory courses that Jim teaches.  It uses a semester long project where students manipulate genes for amylase and work with this important and interesting enzyme.  It also integrates excellent exercises in bioinformatics and 3 D computer modeling of protein and DNA with the web lab procedures.  But, there are a few things that really offend me.  First, $ 65 for a very thin spiral bound book seems outrageously expensive.  Also, until recently the bacterial strains weren’t available through a third party vendor; they had to be ordered from ATCC; the publisher told me that this has been changed.   Also, each experiment uses very expensive reagents.  If you need the bacterial strains, contact Jim and he’ll mail them to you.  JdK

Biotechnology Explorations: Applying the Fundamentals
Judith A. Scheppler, Patricia E. Cassin, Rosa M. Gambier

List Price:   $54.95

Paperback: 288 pages

Publisher: Amer Society for Microbiology; (April 2000)

ISBN: 1555811787

Wendie Johnston of Pasadena City College and Jim both really like the experiments in this book. 

It has an excellent upfront explanation of keeping labbooks and making solutions.  It starts with basic experiments in microbial cell culture and DNA isolation.  It has students work with green fluorescent protein and it has an interesting experiment where students probe 16S RNA genes from a variety of organisms representing 5 Kingdoms (if you still adhere to the 5 Kingdom classification scheme.)  It has the list of vendors that can supply the appropriate microbial strains, vectors, and primers, but only the primary source (like the ATCC) is given for obtaining the 10 organisms.  Since each costs over $ 145, I worry that most of the experiments would exceed the budget of most schools.  Again, if you need any of the bacterial strains, contact Jim. JdK

Unraveling DNA: Molecular Biology for the Laboratory

Michael R. Winfrey (Author), Marc A. Rott (Author), Alan Wortman (Author)

List Price:   $56.00

Paperback: 400 pages

Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (January 22, 1997)

ISBN: 0132700344

This is the book that Philip Jardim of City College of San Francisco uses; he worked with the authors at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.  It has very interesting experiments where the lux operon of Vibrio fisheri is cloned into an expression plasmid that’s used to transform  E. coli to make it bioluminescent.  Recently, Fotodyne has contracted to carry the plasmids and the bacterial strains: www.fotodyne.com.  I was surprised at how dim the glowing bacteria can be - it has to be really dark for you to see the bioluminescence of the E. coli transformed with the lux gene.  JdK

Laboratory DNA Science
Mark V. Bloom (Author), Greg A. Freyer (Author), David A. Micklos (Author)

List Price:   $73.00

Paperback: 371 pages

Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co; (April 1996)

ISBN: 0805330402

Excellent experiments developed by the team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.  Every student should perform the two PCR experiments that use tPA-25 Alu sequences and DS180 VNTR detection.   (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories currently recommend an experiment that looks at Alu in a different region of the genome, since the Alu in tPA-25 has been found to be associated with one form of heart disease.  Of course, Cold Spring Harbor Labs supports and continues to develop new exercises.  This has a new edition due to be released in June 2002 by Cold Spring Harbor Press. JdK

DNA Science: A First Course, Second Edition

David Micklos, Greg A. Freyer

List Price:   $39.95

Hardcover: 500 pages

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; 2nd edition (January 8, 2003)

ISBN: 0879696362

This new edition will incorporate the changes that the team has made; the website indicates that “the first eight chapters have been completely revised, extensively rewritten, and updated.”  This edition will include the new experiments developed at Cold Spring Harbor’s Dolan DNA Learning Center; presumably this includes the experiment where students cycle sequence a section of their mitochondrial DNA.  Carolina Biological will carry the appropriate kits, primers, and strains.     JdK

Biotechnology: A Laboratory Course
by Jeffrey Becker (Author), Guy Caldwell (Author), Eve Ann Zachgo (Author)

List Price:   $44.95

Plastic Comb: 261 pages

Publisher: Academic Press; 2nd edition (January 15, 1996)

ISBN: 0120845628

Other Editions: Paperback | All Editions

This book has some excellent experiments.  I especially like its treatment of routine laboratory procedures, like making up phosphate buffers.  It has an excellent series of experiments that have the students generate, purify, and assay $ galactosidase. JdK

Fundamental Laboratory Approaches for Biochemistry and Biotechnology

Alexander J. Ninfa (Author), David P. Ballou (Author)

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Fitzgerald Science; 1st edition (April 1996)

ISBN: 1891786008

This book begins with protein purification and follows later with experiments in DNA.  It has some excellent sections on protein purification and detection which include discussions of buffers, chromatography, electrophoresis, enzyme kinetics, and spectrophotometry.  In several experiments, it uses E. coli Alkaline Phosphatase as the model protein to purify and assay.   JdK

Short Protocols in Molecular Biology
Frederick M. Ausubel (Editor), Roger Brent (Editor), Robert E. Kingston (Editor), David D. Moore (Editor), J. G. Seidman (Editor), John A. Smith (Editor), Kevin Struhl (Editor)

Paperback: 1512 pages

Publisher: Current Protocols; 5th edition (October 2002)

ISBN: 0471250929 | All Editions

I refer to this book often as a reference (rather than the larger Maniatis et al.)  Wendie Johnston at Pasadena City College has her students reference this book to give them independence after they graduate. The major drawback is the cost: the fourth edition’s price jumped from $ 80 to $ 120. JdK

At the Bench: A Laboratory Navigator

Kathy Barker

List Price:   $49.00

Hardcover: 460 pages

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Spiral edition (December 1998)

ISBN: 0879695234

This excellent book should be given by P.I.’s to their new graduate students or should be purchased by new graduates beginning an R and D career.  It helps to orient the new researcher to what is not important in the lab (there is no dress code) and what is (attend every lab meeting and keep your lab notebook up to date).  It contains tips on how to organize your labbench (“its setup and maintenance are integral to the reproducibility of your experiments) and how to design an experiment.  It also has some nuts and bolts instruction on how to make buffers, maintain bacteria stocks and cell lines, and how to dispose of wastes.     JdK

At The Helm: A Laboratory Navigator

Kathy Barker

List Price: $45.00

Hardcover: 352 pages

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; 1st edition (January 15, 2002)

ISBN: 0879695838

This book addresses the key flaw of the American Research University system: lab directors are trained at the lab bench and to critically review the scientific literature, but not trained to do what they end up doing - running a lab and managing personnel.  This book addresses the key challenges in running a lab.  JdK

Lab Ref: A Handbook of Recipes, Reagents, and Other Reference Tools for Use at the Bench
Jane Roskams (Editor), Linda Rodgers (Editor)

List Price: $24.95

Spiral-bound: 272 pages

Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; Spiral edition (July 2002)

ISBN: 0879696303

This small book is much less useful than the other Cold Spring Harbor laboratory manuals.  JdK

Plant Tissue Culture : Techniques and Experiments
Roberta Smith (Author)

List Price:  $52.95

Plastic Comb: 231 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.92 x 8.97 x 6.45

Publisher: Academic Press; 2nd edition (February 2000)

ISBN: 0126503427

I haven’t performed any of these experiments, but they seem excellent. JdK

Teaching Kits

For anyone who is interested in teaching biotechnology, the easiest way to jump in would be to order a teaching kit from one of the vendors below. 

Biotechnology Teaching Experiment Vendors:

BioRad                                     http://www.bio-rad.com

Edvotek                                   http://www.edvotek.com

Fotodyne                                  http://www.fotodyne.com

Modern Biology Inc                  http://www.modernbio.com

Carolina Biological                    http://www.carolina.com

Wards                                      http://www.wardsci.com

The kits sold by these companies allow someone who is trying to establish a program to jump in quickly.  I especially like the BioRad series that use Green Fluorescent Protein which I view as inspired; the other companies have followed with GFP experiments of their own.

Basic Methods In Molecular Biology

by Leonard G., Ph.D. Davis, W. Michael, Md Kuehl, James F., MD Battey

List Price:  $79.95

Plastic Comb: 345 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Professional; 2nd edition (October 1, 1995)

ISBN: 0838506429

This is a very well organized, detailed volume of laboratory activities.  It ranges from lab safety and the basis of working with DNA to more advanced topics.  The scope of the volume is mostly molecular DNA work, although there are some chapters on protein topics.  Within each laboratory activity there is a clear list of required reagents, special equipment needed as well as the time required for completion of the activity. 

Molecular Biology Techniques: An Intensive Laboratory Course

by Walt Ream (Editor), Katharine G. Field, Katharine G. Field (Editor)

List Price:   $47.95

Plastic Comb: 234 pages

Publisher: Academic Press; 1st edition (January 15, 1999)

ISBN: 0125839901

Procedures Manual for Microbiology
by Michael Leboffe, Burton E. Pierce

Paperback: ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.50 x 11.50 x 8.75

Publisher: Morton Publishing Company; (June 1997)

ASIN: 0895823675

This book is intended to be a companion procedures manual to Photographic Atlas For The Microbiology Lab by the same authors.  This volume has numerous illustrations along with a detailed description of basic laboratory procedures in Microbiology.  This has a workbook format with space for observations and results.  The illustrations and detailed description of the procedures make this a good teaching addition.

Photographic Atlas For The Microbiology Lab
by Leboffe, Michael Leboffe, Burton E. Pierce

List Price:   $24.95

Paperback: 186 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.50 x 11.00 x 9.00

Publisher: Morton Publishing Company; 2 edition (January 1999)

ISBN: 0895824612 | All Editions

This atlas is a useful guide for the undergraduate microbiology course.  In conjunction with the procedures manual it provides a visual approach to the microbiology laboratory.

Biotechnology: Proteins to Pcr: A Course in Strategies and Lab Techniques
by David W. Burden, Donald Whitney (Contributor)

List Price:   $66.95

Plastic Comb: 317 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.80 x 9.32 x 7.52

Publisher: Springer Verlag; Spiral edition (July 1997)

ISBN: 0817638431

Other Editions: Hardcover | Paperback | All Editions

This is a laboratory textbook for the undergraduate to graduate student in protein manipulation.  It include laboratory exercises in isolation, purification and analysis of proteins.  There is an emphasis on strategies for purification.