List of 8 Must Read Books For Every Young Biologist

 It is incredibly important for aspiring young scientists to stay current with the scientific literature. We all know that some journal articles are a slog, and critiquing other's study is often an onerous task. Sometimes it's good to have a break. What follows is a list of popular science books I have found to be very helpful and that I thought I might share with you.

2. The Double Helix by James Watson and What Mad Pursuit by Francis Crick

Watson and Crick are definitely the best double act in the history of biology. They are the yin and yang of the discipline. The Statler and Waldorf of wooly hypotheses. Our scientific forebears have reputations that precede them and that will outlive us all. So it is wonderful to hear them wax lyrical on mathematics. Somebody once said that reading a book was like borrowing someone else's mind for a while. I would say I concur with that. Who better to see for a deal on molecular chemistry malarky than the guys who discovered DNA.

These novels tell the story of their fateful discovery, albeit from slightly differing perspectives. Watson and Crick each clarify the circumstances in which this early cutting edge research occurred, including the controversial access they had to Rosalind Franklin's data. These books offer an important lesson to a young scientist not covered in the program: The importance that factors such as personality and self play in the realm of research.

Read these to get a perspective on how discoveries are made and to observe how self and personality play large roles in search.

3. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner

Within my first year at the lab, a friend loaned me this book about the pioneering work of pioneering geneticists such as Thomas Hunt Morgan and the content lead me to consider for the first time what I think to be one of the biggest technical issues faced by modern Molecular Biologists having an interest in genetics. The whole field is moving so fast that when you arrive in the laboratory as a newbie it can be exceedingly tricky to pick up. It's like moving into a movie halfway through and being expected to fully understand the plot, subtext, and interactions between all of the figures immediately.

As a student, you're dropped in the deep end of the swimming pool and anticipated to understand how to swim quickly. This book provides some extremely useful historical context to the kind of work happening all around the world today. There is a good deal of fascinating descriptions of the kinds of behavioral genetics experiments done on Drosophila, and after all who doesn't love a bit of Drosophila conversation?

Read this if you have ever wondered where all those eccentric receptor titles come from.

4. Virolution by Frank Ryan

Did you know that the growth of all life in the world is driven by a host-parasite co-evolutionary arms race? That is an unprovable theory, but a persuasive case is presented to it in this text. In addition to some fairly esoteric pondering as to where life comes from, the writer also provides intriguing cases of viruses inactivity, including the fish which get ill and die from a virus hidden in their own DNA, which becomes activated when the fish move beyond reproductive age helping to maintain a sustainable population in the ecosystem.

Read this if you're ready to take that viruses may actually be our buddies as soon as it comes to development.

5. Cantor's Dilemma by Carl Djerassi

This is the only bit of fiction about the listing. A publication in the emerging genre of lab lit. While shows like CSI have developed an unrealistic expectation of what science could achieve and the simplicity by which it does it, the ever-growing corpus of the genre manages to portray science in a more realistic manner while preserving the drama and entertainment you expects from a good book. This book provides an intriguing insight into the human part of the research and explores some of the ethical issues that can appear for young scientists.

Read this for some academic intrigue, for a meditation on research ethics, or for some quiet relaxation over a glass of wine.

6.A Life Decoded by Craig Venter

The Godfather of synthetic Biology.The architect of the Human Genome Project. Arguably the single most significant ego in science just now. Supposedly there was a feeling amongst the scientific community which after we had sequenced the human genome that it would just be a matter of time until every known disease was cured. However, upon conclusion, the genome turnout outside to be a Pandora's box. The 80% of the genome initially thought to be junk DNA was a veritable micro-verse of previously unknown epigenetic effects. To misquote Haldane:'not merely is biology more complex than we assume, it's more complex than we can presume'.

This memoir composed by Craig Venter details the major scientist's early life, his reasons for getting into research and chronicles the successes and drawbacks of his livelihood. A considerable part of the text details the race to sequence the human genome along with his subsequent work in synthetic biology. Craig Venter has punctuated his accounts with results from his own genome and also a discussion of how this relates to potential future health problems.

Also of interest is the account of the rivalry between state-financed and separate enterprises trying to get the same goal. James Watson has a cameo in it.

Read this if you would like to know what is needed to be a genetic heavyweight.

7. Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre

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TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs TechyNoobs Either this or Bad Science should be required reading for any and all aspiring scientists (probably both). I have chosen Bad Pharma since it's the most recent, and therefore current, accounts of the issues confronted with medical research now. I analyzed originally under the banner of Translational Medicine, which introduced the question of why not a tiny proportion of medical research ever make it to the clinic?'.

As I played my pipettes I came to realize the powerful pressure to'publish or perish' is a continuation of academic research means that those that are apt to mislead themselves together with biased experiments or even improper statistical analysis, or those who outright lie will probably be more effective than the honest meticulous scientist.

Read on to better understand the real challenges facing medical researchers who plan to bring remedies to the clinic, and for ideas on how to identify and avoid the snake oil scientists out there.

8. The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley

And now for something entirely different. If you are performing a Ph.D. you may ultimately have a doctorate in philosophy, assuming everything goes according to plan. While'doctrine' is a little bit drier than the halcyon metaphysics of yesteryear, this book provides valuable insight into the more esoteric types of conventional thought.

Within this work, Huxley attempts to distill historical wisdom to spot the common threads existing across religions. During your continuing intellectual development, it's essential to be well rounded. This is hard with the moral imperative to generate MORE DATA' looping at 80,000 decibels in your head constantly. Remember that there is a large wide world outside the laboratory as hard as that is to think sometimes. You will benefit from just a small amount of perspective.

Read this for this perspective. Also, you should probably visit the gym more often.