Fundamental laboratory approaches for biochemistry and biotechnology, 2nd edition
Fundamental laboratory approaches for biochemistry and biotechnology, 2nd edition
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DOI：
10.1002/bmb.20321
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发表时间：
2009-09
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
J. Markwell
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
J. Markwell
当我看到一本新书为生物化学教学实验室出版时，我的心情通常是复杂的。一方面，有一些新的想法是很好的，因为我们往往会被一套我们年复一年使用的练习所束缚。然而，我们大多数在实验室教学的人都必须面对这样一个现实，即我们机构有什么设备和资源可用，没有同事恳求我们让他们进入实验室尝试一些新东西，而且我们非常清楚，教学实验室已经比讲堂消耗了更多的讲师时间。为了客观起见，我把这本457页的平装书推迟到周六才看，这样我就可以把它通读一遍。这本书试图为本科生和研究生提供一本教科书，给出与练习中使用的分析技术相关的深入背景和观点，并提供30个适合于3小时实验室时间的练习。我认为，提供一本教科书的意图比试图为特定练习提供一本手册要好得多。这些章节描述了科学研究和实验室运作的基本要素、光谱学、蛋白质浓度的定量测定、层析、电泳法、蛋白质纯化、亚细胞分离、直接酶分析、酶的偶联分析、酶纯化、配基结合、重组DNA技术、聚合酶链式反应和生物化学研究的互联网资源。我喜欢读这本书中的许多章节，因为它们不仅试图涵盖常见实验室技术背后的基本原则，而且还提供了有关分析的详细情况的实用信息。对于明白完成化验和做科学之间的区别的研究生来说，这些“交易诀窍”应该是相当有价值的。我对其中一些章节的材料的深度感到惊讶，并将这本书推荐给一些真正想要了解实验室工作原理的本科生。资源包括在诸如质谱学、核磁共振和电子顺磁共振等技术上，尽管它们没有包括在练习中。我对所展示的30个练习印象不深。我一直在为如何表达这一点而苦苦挣扎，同时仍然公平地对待作者和他们诚实地试图提供有价值的资源。我脑海中浮现的类比是，当我的儿子在第一年本科毕业后搬出宿舍，住在一个有非常小的冰箱、烤箱和电热板的房间里。尽管接受了近20年的均衡饮食训练，他还是靠披萨和拉面生活了9个月。我有点惊讶地打开书的第39页，看到一个模拟的Spectronic 20®，发现练习是为使用这台古老的乐器而设计的。问题不仅是仪器的模拟性质，而且是使用试管，而不是没有固定路径长度的试管和测量光束的20 nm带通。这就是教学实验室的两难境地。我们让学生接触到我们教学实验室中的设备允许的练习，无论这种设备是否仍在数字现实世界的工业或研究实验室中使用。对于我们这些在教学实验室授课的人来说，现实是课程是由可用的设备决定的。讲座课程通过不断修订教科书来保持最新，但不会每5年或每10年修订一次教学实验室基础设施，以使课程保持最新。…
I generally have mixed feelings when I see that a new book has been published for the biochemistry teaching labs. On the one hand, it would be nice to have some new ideas because we tend to get locked into a set of exercises that we use year after year. However, most of us teaching in the labs have to contend with the reality of what equipment and resources are available at our institution, don’t have colleagues begging us to let them come into the labs and try something new, and are only too aware that the teaching laboratory already consumes more of an instructor’s time than the lecture hall. To attempt to be objective, I put off looking at this 457 page paperback until Saturday so that I could give it a full perusal. This book attempts to provide a textbook for undergraduate and graduate students that gives an in-depth background and perspective related to the analytical techniques used in the exercises and provides 30 exercises intended to be appropriate for a 3-hour laboratory period. I feel that the intent to provide a textbook works much better than the attempt to provide a manual for specific exercises. The chapters describe the basic elements of scientific research and functioning in the laboratory, spectroscopy, quantitative determination of protein concentration, chromatography, electrophoresis, protein purification, subcellular fractionation, direct enzyme assay, coupled assay of enzymes, enzyme purification, ligand binding, recombinant DNA techniques, PCR, and internet resources for biochemical research. I enjoyed reading many of these sections of the book because they not only attempted to cover the basic principles behind common laboratory techniques but also provided practical information about the ins and outs of the analyses. These ‘‘tricks of the trade’’should be quite valuable to graduate students who understand the difference between completing an assay and doing science. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the material in some of the sections and will recommend this book to some of the mastery-motivated undergraduate students who really want to understand how things work in the laboratory. Resources were included on techniques such as mass spectrometry, NMR, and EPR even though they were not included in the exercises. I was less impressed with the 30 exercises that were presented. I have struggled with how to express this and still be fair to the authors and their honest attempt to provide a valuable resource. The analogy that comes to mind is recalling when my son moved out of the dormitory after the first undergraduate year and lived in a room with a very small refrigerator, a toaster oven, and a hot plate. In spite of almost 20 years training in eating a balanced diet, he resorted to living on pizza and ramen noodles for 9 months. I was somewhat surprised to open the book to page 39 and see an analog Spectronic 20® and find that the exercises are designed to be carried out with this venerable instrument. The problem is not only the analog nature of the instrument but also in the use of test tubes, rather than cuvettes with no fixed path length and the 20-nm bandpass of the measuring beam. Herein, lies the dilemma for teaching laboratories. We expose students to exercises permitted by the equipment in our teaching labs, regardless of whether this equipment is still being used in industrial or research labs in the digital real world. The reality for those of us who instruct in teaching labs is that the curriculum is dictated by the available equipment. The lecture courses are kept current by continuous revision of textbooks, but there is no revision of teaching lab infrastructure every 5 or 10 years to keep their curriculum current …