86 Book reviews

Handbook of enzyme biotechnology, 3rd edn. Edited byAlan Wiseman, Ellis Horwood/Prentice Hall, HemelHempstead, 1995, 738 pp, price UK £94.95.ISBN 0 13 382920 0

Industrial enzymology, 2nd edn. Edited by TonyGodfrey & Stuart West, Macmillan Press Ltd, London,1996, 609 pp. price UK £110.00.ISBM 0 333 59464 9

There can be no doubt that enzyme technology is in ahealthy state after reading these two new editions ofauthoritative handbooks on the production and appli-cations of enzymes. Alan WisemanÏs Handbook nowconsists of 738 pages (the Ðrst edition (1975) having 275and the second (1985) having 457) whilst the verywelcome second edition of Industrial Enzymology, nowedited by Tony Godfrey and Stuart West, has alsoincreased signiÐcantly in size. With size comes cost butboth volumes are good value and must be available inthe library of any institution in which applied enzy-mology is studied. The copies of both volumes in thisreviewerÏs library are already dog-eared, which indicatestheir popularity among Ðnal year undergraduates andpostgraduates.

The general format of the Handbook is as previously,with sections dealing with the principles of industrialenzyme production and with the industrial utilization ofenzymes and cells. An innovation is a third sectiondescribed as Special Reports, which presents materialon biotechnology patents and on the control of cellgrowth. The strategy has been to present a thoroughupdate of the subjects in the second edition : VladimirPasechnik and Jack Melling from CAMR Portonprovide a largely new review of methods for the large-scale extraction and puriÐcation of proteins and PeterCheetham, John Kennedy and B. J. Gould presentrevised and extended chapters on the principles ofindustrial enzyme use, enzyme immobilization andapplications of enzymes in clinical analysis, respectively.Michael WinklerÏs chapter on fermentation processdesign is totally new. The second section complementsthe Ðrst, with the same authors describing the applica-tion of the principles covered in the Ðrst section toindustrial use. Innumerable examples and case studiesare described. The new section, Special Reports, doesnot Ðt snugly with the remainder of the volume butAlan BarkerÏs listing of patents to do with applicationsof enzymes will be useful to many.

Industrial Enzymology is akin to a much-expandedsecond section of the Handbook, providing much moredetail on the applications in 22 di†erent industries.Each chapter is written by experts from the appropriateindustry or from enzyme suppliers : students seekinginformation on some of the rarer, or less-publicized usesof enzymes, such as in leather processing, pulp andpaper production or wine making, Ðnd this section a

gold mine. The Ðnal third of the volume deals with thecharacteristics of industrial enzymes, providing pH-activity curves of 85 of them, also the legislative, regula-tory and safety aspects of using enzymes. There are twovery useful chapters from Paul Fullbrook on practicalaspects of enzyme kinetics. Finally there is an extremelyuseful reference section providing a matrix of informa-tion on the names and addresses of companies manufac-turing and supplying enzymes, the trade names ofenzyme preparations from those companies, the enzymeactivities and their conditions of use and a guide to theuse of enzymes in the more common industrial areas.

The editors of both books are to be congratulated onmaintaining and enhancing the quality of their alreadyprestigious volumes.

C. Bucke

Chemistry and the living organism, 6th edn. Molly M.BloomÐeld & Lawrence J. Stephens, John Wiley &Sons, Inc., New York, 1996, 672 pp., UK £23.95.ISBN 0 471 10777 8

The Ðrst edition of this book was published in 1977 andI have used the 5th edition since 1992 to teach basicchemistry to Ðrst year biological science undergraduateswho do not have “AÏ level chemistry. I have also used itfor ab initio mature undergraduate students in the bio-logical sciences. The book would also be useful for stu-dents on BTec courses in chemistry and biochemistryand other health-related courses where these subjectsare needed.

The 6th edition is a welcome addition, the mostobvious changes from the previous being to style ratherthan content as you might expect from a book with itspedigree. The 6th edition is slightly more compact, withmany diagrams redrawn to e†ect and several new pho-tographs. The emphasis throughout is on biological andespecially clinical applications.

A useful feature of the book, in common with othersof the genre, is the inclusion of anecdotal real life storieswith photographs, at the beginning of each chapterwhich put the rest of the chapter in context. At thebeginning of the chapter on radioactivity the case of ayoung women with thyroid cancer is described and howiodine-131 was used in di†erent doses, in both the diag-nosis and treatment. The chapter on nucleic acidsbegins with a short case history of a boy with sickle cellanaemia (or American “anemiaÏ). But I would prefer tosee the list of chapter sub-headings here at the begin-ning of the chapter too, rather than listed at the front ofthe book.

The coverage of the book is broad, beginning with atreatment of the nature of matter, units, molar calcu-lations, atomic structure and laboratory aspects ofchemistry. Acids and bases, reaction kinetics, equilibria

Book reviews 87

and radioisotopes each have chapters and three chap-ters (12È14) give a gentle introduction to organic chem-istry, isomers and an outline of the chemistry offunctional groups. The Ðnal seven chapters (of 21) dealwith the traditional basics of natural product chemistry,enzymes and an overview of intermediary metabolism,biochemical genetics and some aspects of physiologicalchemistry.

Chapter 20 gives an attractive, nicely illustrated andreadable treatment of the chemistry and function of thegene and the Ðnal chapter gives a brief introduction tothe biochemical aspects of selected topics in physiology.This chapter goes by the unappealing title of “BodyFluidsÏ and introduces mammalian gaseous exchange,pH homeostasis, clotting and urine composition butone wonders what sort of course such a selective groupof topics in physiology would be useful for. There islittle mention of endocrine control of metabolism forexample or of immunity.

The strength of this book is in its coverage of thefundamentals of chemistry and biochemistry to studentswho have had no experience before in these subjects.The particular methodology for dealing with mole cal-culations using conversion factor ratios is particularlyuseful, systematic and foolproof. The book is easy toread, has plenty of “white spaceÏ and this edition is farbetter illustrated and more colourful than previous edi-tions. Although written primarily for the Americanmarket, it is easily adapted to the increasingly unitisedor modularised course structures in UK colleges andcould be used by students on several modules, reducingtheir Ðnancial outlay.

However, I do have one concern. As with most of thisstyle of books these days a very comprehensive pro-gramme of in-chapter self assessment questions is pro-vided with the answers given in the back. This isparticularly useful to encourage students to both use thebook and develop an independent study habit. In order,however, to get the answers to some of the end ofchapter questions, another book, the “Study GuideÏ isrequired : I have found students complain bitterly aboutthis and I Ðnd myself apologising about it. However,what is very useful for the teacher is a set of overheadtransparencies which is available from the publishers.This does encourage the use of the book from a cynicalmarketing point of view but for those of us who havespent an incalculable number of hours carefully drawingour own overheads this is a real luxury and one appre-ciated by students in making their learning more e†ec-tive.

There is no getting away from the fact that this rep-resents another one of the new generation of wellwritten, highly professionally produced, colourful textsin the biological sciences which only those of us whostruggled through our “AÏ levels and degrees with thegrey textbooks of the 1960s and before can fully appre-ciate. The cost of the book at around £20 is not unrea-sonable for what you get but the good value is probablya reÑection of the economics of the American pro-duction. I am soon to review a British equivalent andwill be interested to see whether it meets the same highstandard.

Peter Davies