This volume is aimed essentially at ®rst year students and for courses based on a single semester. The same, successful, layout has been retained for the new edition in which copious illustrations are used together with a clear text. This is made more interesting by the inclusion of Human Perspectives for each topic, showing how the material relates to the human condition, and a description of experimental pathways in which key experiments are described. Furthermore, each chapter concludes with a synopsis, a series of analytical questions and an additional reading list. The book terminates with a glossary and answers to the odd-numbered analytical questions.
A number of changes have been made from the ®rst edition as the result of suggestions from students, teachers and professional reviewers. These include the introduction of a chapter on the immune response, additional illustrations Ð including new overview ®gures Ð and a tighter literary style. However, there is a great deal of material in the book for a beginner and the prospective student should not be daunted by the mass of information on this rapidly expanding ®eld. The volume is readable and easy to use and so should be accessible to students with little or no knowledge of cell and molecular biology.