Product Description

The Eighth Edition of Developmental Biology expands its coverage of the mechanisms of development, the roles that environmental factors play in development, the medical applications of our knowledge of development, and the roles that development plays in evolution, highlighting all the incredible advances that have been made in the last three years. Written primarily for undergraduate biology majors, it also serves to introduce graduate students and medical students to developmental biology.

A completely updated text integrates classical developmental biology with contemporary techniques, including new material on: stem cells niches; microRNAs; sperm-egg attraction and binding; induction and maintenance of pluripotency; pioneer transcription factors and the recruitment of nucleosome remodeling proteins; left-right gene expression asymmetry; heart chamber specification; neural crest cell specification and differentiation; somite formation; human brain growth genes; the syndetome; new sources of muscle precursor cells; newly discovered mechanisms of teratogenesis; the effects of endocrine disruptors on human development; sex determination pathways in the brain; the effects of maternal nutrition on gene expression and disease susceptibility in the adult offspring; controversies over digit specification in birds and dinosaurs and whether mammalian blastomere fate is biased at the first division; and much more. Included with every copy of the book is Vade Mecum2: An Interactive Guide to Developmental Biology. In addition to a wealth of interactive content, this updated version includes a new Teachers' and Student's Resource with PowerPoint® slides of chick whole mounts and serial sections. A searchable PDF file on the CD contains full citations for the book's literature cited, with links to PubMed. The CD also includes Mary Tyler's laboratory manual, Developmental Biology: A Guide for Experimental Study, Third Edition, in electronic (PDF) format. textbook and provides more information for advanced students, historical, philosophical, and ethical perspectives on issues in developmental biology, movies, interviews, Web links, and updates. The website includes the full bibliography of literature cited in the book (over 5,000 references), most of which are linked to their PubMed citations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #107512 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 785 pages

About the Author
SCOTT F. GILBERT is Howard A. Schneiderman Professor of Biology at Swarthmore College, USA, and teaches Developmental Biology, Developmental Genetics and the History of Biology. SUSAN R. SINGER is at the Department of Biology, Carleton College, Minnesota, USA .

Customer Reviews

Too much focus on details, not enough on concepts
I used this book as a textbook for a senior-level class in Developmental Biology. Gilbert is the standard reference, and I had used his 2nd edition book years ago when I had Embryology myself. Someone else ordered the book (before I was hired) but I was relieved when I found out that it was Gilbert's text.

However, much has changed since the second edition. One bewildering aspect is that, although development arguably begins at the point of gamete fusion (fertilization), this is not covered until Chapter 7... there is half a semester's worth of material before one even gets to fertilization. This strikes me as too long; many of the concepts that precede it are really best handled afterwards (such as cell-cell signaling). I note that fertilization made its appearance in Chapter 2 of the 2nd edition, so it is not just my personal view that this is the right place to begin -- it used to be Gilbert's!

Beyond the strange choice of sequence, I found that this book focuses too much on idiosyncratic details and not enough on over-arching concepts. For instance, Gilbert spends pages upon pages describing in detail one specific cascade reaction after another, without ever really "zooming out" to generally address the importance of cascade reactions overall. In other words, he spends so much time focusing on the detailed nuances of the leaves on every tree, that he misses the forest.

My students universally despised this book, and complained that it was near impossible to follow or understand. They said that they got much more out of my lectures. But the only difference was that I spent time poring over the book (as I am not really a Developmental Biologist myself) and reading it carefully, and then making outlines of the general concepts that Gilbert was illustrating with his details. I could then present the concepts to the students, and tell them that the book has examples.

I really believe that a text book should be organized around concepts and biological processes, not the details of a thousand examples. Examples will be forgotten over time, and can be looked up in any case, but the understanding of the overall concept is what one most needs to obtain in class, and from a text book. This edition of the book is really just a compendium of examples from the literature, and not a textbook of concepts.

I know that Gilbert is a "standard" text in this field, but I am nevertheless exploring other Developmental Biology texts for next year, because this one just does not do the job that a good basic text book should do.

Outstanding in-depth intro to developmental biology
I think Scott Gilbert has done an absolutely stupendous job in writing this clearly written, beautifully illustrated and up-to-date exposition of developmental biology. The concluding chapter on evolutionary developmental biology is brief but very well done. The websites associated with the book and the CD provide much additional information. Definitely the premier textbook in this area. Don't tackle it without having taken at least a course in cell biology, and some exposure to biochemistry and genetics would be helpful as well. The last time I read a dev bio textbook was when I was in college 30 years ago; how things have changed!

Good overview of developmental biology
Well written and illustrated reference on animal development. This book covers basic principles of developmental biology, and then considers transcriptional regulation, control of development by RNA processing and translational regulation. Cell specification and cellular interactions are then considered. The last chapter considers developmental mechanisms in evolution.