Comments for Biotech Source

Comment on Peptide and Protein Design for Biopharmaceutical Applications by Custom Peptides

Custom Peptides — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 22:11:06 +0000

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Comment on The Biomedical Engineering Handbook by Al

Al — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:58:44 +0000

This handbook provides the reader with an excellent overview of what Biomedical Engineering is and what are the trend that we can expect in the future.

The handbook covers 18 different sections, each one containing about 6 different topics. At the beginning of each section there is a short explanation of the main issues that will be covered.

Although the Handbook will not be useful for an expert in one of the topics, it will certainly be useful to explore different areas in Biomedical Engineering for professionals, or students who need a brief but concise and depth analysis for a particular topic.
Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on An Introduction to Biomedical Optics by Phillip Broussard

Phillip Broussard — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:52:44 +0000

I am presently teaching a course with this book and have found that it is very poorly written/edited. There are numerous errors throughout the text in the equations, and the descriptions of the physics are at a high school level when this should be a junior college level text. The topics are well chosen, but the coverage of material is extremely spotty, and the writing style makes it very hard to wade through the equations, especially when terms are not defined and approximations are not stated. Better to use a standard in optics and bring in the medical view from other sources.
Rating: 1 / 5

Comment on The Biomedical Engineering Handbook by Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 10 May 2010 05:52:47 +0000

This text is the first word in Biomedical Ref. It is arranged in a user friendly manner and is filled with useful data. The ethics section is a plus for ISO compliant users. Charts, formulas, and frequently used Engineering terminology abound. This updated version is a vast improvement over the 1995 edition.
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on Stem Cells For Dummies by Barb

Barb — Mon, 10 May 2010 01:56:03 +0000

It is unfortunate that someone would torpedo a perfectly fine book because of their personal biases, apparently without even reading it. Further, it is an insult to Dr. Goldstein to suggest that he is biased, when he has worked hard to present the information objectively.

No matter where you stand on the issue of embryonic stem cells, I recommend that we all read this book to learn the truth about the science, where we are at now, and where we are going. Chapter 18 is devoted to dispelling stem cell myths. One old myth is that stem cells come from aborted fetuses, but these cells aren't the same a human embryonic stem cells.

As Stem Cells grow in importance, it is necessary for all of us to have an accurate understanding of the science. Then you can consider the ethical, religious, philosophical and moral questions covered in Chapter 15. Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on Mobile Telemedicine: A Computing and Networking Perspective by W Boudville

W Boudville — Mon, 10 May 2010 00:14:37 +0000

Here is an upbeat look at future medicine. The ever cheaper cost of computing and communications promises significant improvements in telemedicine. The authors survey the possibilities.

Prominent amongst these is safety. Being able to remotely monitor elderly or others who might need urgent assistance. As the proportion of elderly increases in several countries, this affords lifestyle improvements and productivity gains.

In related ways, there are others who need regular monitoring of their health. The example of diabetics keeping an eye on their insulin levels in blood is given. Especially relevant, since diabetes has been increasing worldwide. For cases like this, the monitoring might be automatically done by instruments on the person, and then uploaded to a central location, for future analysis.

Another improvement is for a doctor to be able to diagnose a patient remotely. Or even to conduct surgery in this manner. The latter might be still fairly rare, however. Rating: 4 / 5

Comment on Stem Cells For Dummies by Don C. Reed

Don C. Reed — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:13:03 +0000

I have known Dr. Larry Goldstein for many years. He is not only an outstanding scientist, but someone who will take a stand to protect scientific freedom. He is a pleasure to listen to, and to read, because he can make the most complicated scientific information understandable, good "people talk" person!

I am buying the book without hesitation, because I know the care and thoroughness he puts into everything he does, and this will be outstanding.

Don C. Reed Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on Multiple Testing Procedures with Applications to Genomics by Michael R. Chernick

Michael R. Chernick — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:08:02 +0000

The traditional approach to multiple testing or simultaneous inference was to take a small number of correlated or uncorrelated tests and estimate a family-wise type I error rate that minimizes the the probability of just one type I error out of the whole set whan all the null hypotheses hold. Bounds like Bonferroni or Sidak were sometimes used to as method for constraining the typeI error as they represented upper bounds. Other approaches were to use multivariate methods for tests statistics such as Tukey’s least significant difference, Scheffe’s method and Dunnett’s test. More recently stepdown procedures have become popular in clinical trials but there the multiplicity is usually 5 or less. With the introduction of the bootstrap and advances in computer speed that allowed permutation methods to gain a greater prominence also Westfall and Young came up with a prescription for using resampling to adjust individual p-values for the multiple testing and this was implemented in the SAS procedure MULTTEST and documented both in the SAS manual and the book by Westfall and Young in the mid 1990s. The authors of this text want to extend multiple testing to microarrays where literally thousands of hypothesis are being tested on a single array. Dudoit and van der Laan extend the theory to permit bootstrapping to work in a much broader context where many criteria other than familywise error rate (FWER)are considered including false discovery rate (FDR). They say that for problems involving very high dimensional data an assumption they call subset pivotality does not apply. This assumption is essentially what is needed in the Westfall and Young theory and involves the use of what the authors call a data generating null distribution. To create a method that works for microarray and other high dimensional data the authors base their procedrues onthe joint null distribution of the test statistics rather than the data generating null distributions that all other methods depend on.

The book provides a very general theory that generalizes the ideas of resampling based methods to a new framework. The authors intend the book for both statisticians and applied scientists who encounter high-dimensional data in their subject area. The book provides a very detailed and highly theoretical account of multiple testing and may not be suitable for some applied statisticians and scientists. But the ideas are important to all especially in the area of genomics. The authors claim that chapters 4-7 are theoretical chapters that may not be suitable for everyone but they insist that the introductory chapters 1-3 and the applications chapters 8-13 are intended for people with a good biological background but not necessarily a very strong statistical background. I do not share their view about chapters 1-3 which I think would be difficult for anyone lack a graduate level statistics background but I do agree that the applications chapters 8-13 are palatable for the intended audience and is particular interesting for those with knowledge of and interest in the biological sciences.
Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on Stem Cells For Dummies by L. Larsen

L. Larsen — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:34:00 +0000

This book is a complete, unbiased, authoritative guide on stem cell research and its implications for the human race. Each issue in the topic is carefully, thoroughly, and fairly discussed in clear language.

Each point of view, whether political or moral, is considered and weighed. The science behind this very complicated issue is clearly laid out in a manner simple enough for everyone to understand, yet complicated enough to satisfy doctors.

I believe that this book should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the topic - which includes anyone and everyone who takes part in health care. This issue is not going to go away. In fact, it is going to become more and more important as science progresses.

I wish I could give the book 10 stars. Bravo, Ms. Schneider and Dr. Goldstein!! Rating: 5 / 5

Comment on Stem Cells For Dummies by Cookman

Cookman — Sun, 09 May 2010 22:16:04 +0000

The depth and breadth of this book is simply outstanding. This is one of the most difficult and challenging moral issues of our time. As one who will benefit from stem cell research, I was excited to read this book. I was very impressed with the balance and the time given to views on both sides of the issue.

I just wish that people who don't understand the issue wouldn't simply dismiss it without learning about it. The knee-jerk reaction is one of the major problems in our society today.

Thank you for such a wonderful and complete resource. Rating: 5 / 5