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Book Reviews

Genetic Variation: A Laboratory Manual

Diddahally R. Govindaraju, PhD

School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, Mass

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
Michael P. Weiner, Stacey B. Gabriel, Claiborne Stephens, eds.
472 pages. Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 2007. $165.00. ISBN 978–087969780–8.

Genetic variation is central to all evolutionary change. Hence, the study of genetic variation spans plant and animal breeding, conservation biology, human genetics, and comparative genomics. Despite its fundamental importance in several areas of genetics, there has been a long period of "struggle to measure genetic variation."¹ It was a struggle because markers used to measure genetic variation, such as morphological and biochemical markers, often were limited and influenced by environmental factors. These limitations also impeded progress toward understanding genetic architecture and its influence on phenotype, including human disorders. Fortunately, advances in molecular biology since the late 1970s, specifically our knowledge of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and, more recently, copy number variations (CNVs), have revolutionized our ability to describe variation at all levels of genetic organization: genes, individuals, populations, species, and genera. Unfortunately, molecular techniques to quantify genetic variation are scattered in molecular biology laboratory manuals or buried in specialized publications and specific laboratory protocols. It is therefore a challenge for geneticists, population biologists, genetic epidemiologists, and especially scientists in developing countries to access these resources and use them in their own work.

From this perspective, the book Genetic Variation: A Laboratory Manual by Weiner, Gabriel, and Stephens is poised to fulfill this need. An impressive array of investigators, representing both private and academic institutions active in discovering and evaluating genetic variation in plants, animals, and humans . . . [Full Text of this Article]