Protein Engineer-ing Handbook

Stefan Lutz and Uwe Born-scheuer did a great job! By con-

vincing many of the key players inthe field to contribute to this two-

volume masterpiece, they managed toassemble basically all aspects of modern

protein engineering technology under one roof,that is, between four hard covers. The topics treatedrange from “Computational Protein Design” to“Engineering Enantioselectivity in Enzyme-Cata-lyzed Reactions”, and from “Protein Folding”—illuminated from various angles—to “EvolutionaryMethods”. Merely by glancing over the chaptertitles, the interested reader will notice that the twovolumes cover not only those topics that are a must-read for newcomers to the field but also highlyspecialized topics, where even professionals mayfind and pick nuggets related to their own research.It is a major achievement by the editors to haveunified this impressive span of topics when designingthis book. This will ensure that the Protein Engineer-ing Handbook has a firm position nearest to the deskon the shelves of many protein engineers!

The book�s versatility is reflected not only in thewide range of topics treated, but also in eachindividual chapter. Without picking a specific one, Ican say that each author or co-author seems to haveworked out extremely carefully a perfect mixturethat includes a substantial part explaining the basicessentials of her/his topic. This is usually nicelyillustrated by clear figures or tables and a well-balanced specialized part, which provides meth-odological details of theory and practice and a widerange of valuable references.

This book series on protein engineering hasappeared at the right time, even if perhaps a littlelate for one or two readers, as many proteinengineers have waited a long time for a bookdealing with their favorite playground. There are,of course, numerous publications and reviewscovering individual parts of this seemingly endlessrealm of science, but they never give you theoverview “at a glance” as this series can do. Proteinengineers have been around since the beginning ofmodern molecular biology, and structurally ori-ented scientists discovered that 1 plus 1 may bemuch more than 2. Specifically modifying theprimary sequence in the protein of interest and

using the outcome as a small step towards under-standing the structure–function relationships ofproteins is still an ever-young discipline whoseattractiveness was never jeopardized in all thoseyears. Even more: with every new mutant polypep-tide that is designed, expressed, and characterized,new insights are gained and even more absorbingquestions can be posed!

The Protein Engineering Handbook is actuallyin very good company: in recent years Wiley-VCHhas published a whole range of book series in thebroad field of “proteins”. These range from ProteinAnalytics to Structural Genomics to Enzymes inIndustry Bioinformatics, Handbook of Proteins, andProtein Folding. In this context, the present ProteinEngineering Handbook is perfectly embedded.

The term “Handbook” in the title can be takenliterally! As mentioned above, the user might oftenpick it up to start reading about a certain topic, butit also will certainly lie open next to the researcher�spipette in order to follow one of the protocols thatare outlined. Thus, it becomes “handy”, both forlecturers and for students!

The major drawback of a book series such asthis is to some extent generic: it is that the literaturereferences are not all as up-to-date as one mightwish. Apparently it takes a rather long time-frameto assemble this amount of knowledge and to get itpublished. In this aspect, I see room for improve-ment for authors, editors, and publishers. Every-body would profit if the processing of volumes suchas the one discussed here could be quicker.

I am convinced that Stefan Lutz and UweBornscheuer have succeeded in putting together a“[…] book series [that] might offer some newinspiration[…]” as they modestly claim in theirintroductory words. It definitely opens up routestowards the wide field of protein engineering forinterested researchers. Admittedly, the editors didnot achieve the impossible, namely to cover every-thing related to the topic, but they got far, very far!Furthermore, when the Protein Engineering Hand-book is viewed against the background of recenthardcover publications, the picture comes close tobeing complete.

Peter LindnerDepartment of Biochemistry, University of Zurich(Switzerland)

DOI: 10.1002/anie.200907322

Protein EngineeringHandbook2 volumes. Edited by StefanLutz and Uwe T.Bornscheuer. Wiley-VCH,Weinheim 2008. 973 pp.,hardcover E 349.00.—ISBN978-3527318506

AngewandteChemieBooks

1529Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2010, 49, 1529 � 2010 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim