How Cells Work -- The Complexity of Living Things -- Looking at Very Small Things -- Manipulation of the Very Small -- Reprogramming Cells -- Other Ways to Use Biology for Biological Experiments -- Bioinformatics -- Where to go from here?.

This practical guide provides a succinct treatment of the general concepts of cell biology, furnishing the computer scientist with the tools necessary to read and understand current literature in the field. The book explores three different facets of biology: biological systems, experimental methods, and language and nomenclature. After a brief introduction to cell biology, the text focuses on the principles behind the most-widely used experimental procedures and mechanisms, relating them to well-understood concepts in computer science. The presentation of the material has been prepared for the reader's quick grasp of the topic: comments on nomenclature and background notes can be ascertained at a glance, and essential vocabulary is boldfaced throughout the text for easy identification. Computer science researchers, professionals and computer science students will find this an incomparable resource and an excellent starting point for a more comprehensive examination of cell biology. "This concise book is an excellent introduction for computer scientists to the exciting revolution under way in molecular biology. It provides lucid, high-level descriptions of the fundamental molecular mechanisms of life, and discusses the computational principles involved. I wish this little gem was available when I was 'learning the ropes'- it would have been my first choice of reading material." --Roni Rosenfeld, Carnegie Mellon University