Volume 152 of the Methods in Enzymology series is one of several current or imminent new volumes aimed at presenting up-to-date techniques of molecular biology and genetics.
Many new methods have been developed since the publication of the first truly useful and definitive standard in the field, the handbook by Maniatis, Fritsch, and Sambrook, published by Cold Spring Harbor Press in 1982. This new volume, edited by Shelby Berger and Alan Kimmel, is a hefty 800-page cornucopia of recipes and methods described by a very large number of contributors. For the most part, the methods represent most of the important and useful ones required in molecular genetics laboratories and the authors are in most cases experienced and expert. Obviously, it is not always necessary in volumes of this sort to have methods described by those who originated them, as is made clear by the Maniatis manual. For the editors of this book to have relied entirely on primary authors would have meant having to deal with an unimaginably large number of authors, and the decision to rely on a smaller number of experienced, but not necessarily original, technique developers, is understandable. In all but a few instances, the approach works well in this book.
Would one go to this book if one were to try to introduce a new technique into the laboratory? Yes, probably, in most cases. One always tends to rely, if possible, on colleagues down the hall to learn a new technique, and for those lucky enough to be close to other investi-Current Protocols in Molecular Biology. Edited by F. M.