medicine

This book is very much like its well known predecessor, the currently 3 volume Molecular Cloning Manual with which it shares an editor and a similar title (in fact, it could pass as volume 4).
Overall it gives a good coverage of spotted microarray technology starting from the preparation of probes and slides to sample preparation and hybridization. In addition to expression profiling areas covered include uses of microarrays for analysis of chromatin immunoprecipitation samples, DNA copy number determination, and detection of genetic polymorphisms (oligo arrays). Tissue-arrays and micro-dissection techniques for sample preparation are also described. The bioinformatics section is less extensive than the experimental parts, but the chapters on clustering, self organizing maps and databases serve as good introductions to these areas. I especially liked the image acquisition, normalization and quality control sections. These reviews presented their material in a very clear and sensible way.
Each chapter starts with a short summary of the relevant background. These introductions are very concise, straightforward, jargon-free and up to date in their references. They are written by leading experts of their fields. In addition, there are several "Information Panels" with similar qualities, covering somewhat more general background material.
This is a very nice looking book; it is a pleasure to look at and to hold. I am sure every lab that uses microarrays could benefit from it.