The Molecular Biology of Viruses

many line drawings, plates and tables in the text, almost one per page. A few typographical errors mar the book. This text is suitable for the advanced student who wants additional reading about structure at the molecular level. It is less suitable for the active researcher because it is often difficult to follow up statements in the text by using the general references at the end of the chapter. Dr. Finean might have produced a tighter book if he had eliminated the capsule descriptions of function-coding, protein synthesis, DNA replica-tion-and kept strictly to structure. In general he is at his best when discussing his own field, membranes, and this book quite rightly has a bias in this direction. The author index lists 11 references to Finean, with Pauling's five references in second place. The section on fibrous proteins plus the chapter on lipids make up more than one third of the book. This book will be a useful addition to any biological sciences library. This volume contains the papers read at a symposium on the molecular biology of viruses which was held in June 1966. Most of the papers consist of presentation of the development and lines of interest in individual laboratories working with either bacteriophage or mammalian viruses. Many excellent groups in this field contributed to this symposium. However , the volume suffers from the common problem of published symposia: that is, by the time the material is actually available in printed form much of it is outdated for the researcher. For example, subsequent work with hybridized animal cells as well as work with nucleic acid homology techniques have substantially advanced the understanding of the nature of cell transformation by DNA viruses. Studies in the bacterial phage field concerned with homopolynucleotides binding to DNA have considerably advanced knowledge of distribution of genetic material on lambda bacterial phage DNA. There was no discussion of adenovirus SV40 hybrid agents. Many other examples could be quoted. However the volume contains a number of excellent chapters that will be useful for the non-expert, and even for the virologist working in a different field. For example, there are several excellent discussions of lambda phage, including a discussion by Hogness, et al., of the position and orientation of genes in lambda. Dr. Ginsberg presents a discussion of his studies of macromolecular synthesis in adenovirus infected cells that is not available in any single place elsewhere. …