Reddit mentions: The best cell biology books

I'll just add here.

It seems intimidating at first. But it builds up just like math.

Personally, I really recommend Cambell's Biology as an introductory text. It is really great to start with. It explains things well, and maintains simplicity in explanations without sacrificing complexity at your level.

There is a big difference in how one studies biology vs mathematics. Mathematics is pretty much all problems, and thinking about those problems and concepts. Biology you generally don't have access to huge problem sets. You're lucky to find 30 multiple choice problems/chapter. It is mainly thinking about concepts in depth, over and over again critically, and memorizing details.

There are many ways of memorizing. The classic way many undergrads will do initially just memorize words. I think the best way is active learning. Ex: understanding exactly why things pass through the phospholipid bilayer and the various mechanisms they do(passive diffusion, primary and secondary active transport etc.) will allow you to predict whether things will pass through or not. I remember in my undergraduate cell biology class. My professor would mention an random molecule. Then we'd have to predict based on chemical structure if it would go through or not.

In biology things repeat themselves over and over again.

If you want to get into neuroscience texts. I'd recommend just getting through cambell's biology, and preferably a basic knowledge of chemistry as well. This will allow you to critically think about biology better. Truthfully, it is hard to truly understand why things happen unless you take organic chem and biochem. however you aren't trying to be a biologist or physician. So you can go as far as you feel you need to go.

If you need help I am a doctor and biomedical engineer. So I can certainly provide some assistance.

In biology, general study methods are...

Compare and Contrast Similar and Disimilar topics. You get a better conceptual understanding between hemidesmosomes, desomosomes, gap junctions, tight junctions and all of these cell-cell and cell-ECM interactions by comparing and contrast

Understand the chemistry behind why something happens. This may not make sense now, but if you know where ATP and ADP+Pi cycles occur in kinesins and dyneins, you will understand why each is attracted to opposinmg electrochemical polarities.

Learn words as images. When someone saids something like axon hillock, a picture should pop into your head. It makes it much easier to learn things if you visualize it in biology.

Biology is probably one of the few areas of science where things are ALWAYS changing. What we knew 5 years ago may not be the same today. So getting an up to date textbook is important. If it is older than like 3-4 years, it is probably not worth getting with some exceptions.
___
Here are some texts I recommend

Basic Biology: https://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Biology-10th-Jane-Reece/dp/0321775651/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484097281&sr=8-1&keywords=campbell+biology

Biophysics: https://www.amazon.com/Biological-Physics-New-David-Goodsell/dp/0716798972/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484097568&sr=8-1&keywords=Biophysics

-I think this text is probably the best for you to start with since you have a mathematics background and the book takes a mathematics/physics approach to biology rather than a biology approach to physics/math. So you may enjoy this to start. Read the comments and evaluate yourself I suppose.

Cell Biology: https://www.amazon.com/Cell-Molecular-Approach-Seventh/dp/160535290X/ref=sr_1_11?
ie=UTF8&qid=1484097587&sr=8-11&keywords=Cell+Biology

-Everyone has different preferences for cell biology texts. It is such an up and coming field that there really is no best text. Personally this is one of my favorites. The images are beautiful, the explanations are as fantastic as they are going to be. This is a heavy duty text and is probably a sophomore/junior biology text. So don't go through this before Campbell. It also takes an experimental approach. Read them. Experiments in biology are like proofs in math. It's important to understand how we discovered something.

Neuroscience: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0071390111/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3QI2HWYNLVU1I&coliid=I1OCX5XH50BMBO

This is my favorite. I have it on my shelf right now. Great reference for me as a physician if I need to review some neuro concept I have forgotten. A lot of my neurosurgery/neurology colleagues swear by it.

Neuroanatomy: https://www.amazon.com/Neuroanatomy-Illustrated-Colour-Text-5e/dp/0702054054/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1484098053&sr=8-4&keywords=Neuroanatomy

This is my favorite as a sole neuroanatomy text. however Netter's Anatomy is my absolute favorite anatomical text, the pictures are gorgeous especially neuroanatomy. however for someone like you, a dedicated neuroanatomy text may or may not be necessary. It is generally a text intended for clinicians, however anatomy is anatomy lol.

I hope I offered some resources to get you started!

Okay, I've been thinking about this and have many things that have influenced me but here's a few!
this book was wonderful for understnaing the basics of cell biology when I began my journey. It's also a great reference.
For fun reading really enjoyed survival of the sickest and Sharon Moalem's other books as well. He's a medical doctor who also does genetic disease research.
For concepts I struggled with I would find academic videos on you tube. There are some really great resources out there for quick refreshers! I don't have specific channels to recommend though, it just depends on the topic.
After having a good foundation and starting to ask more specific questions it's time dive in to scientific literature! I started out with review articles in my field (membrane trafficking). These are great because they summarize years worth of discoveries in a few pages, and also cite the original papers where you can go to learn more!
After having a good grasp on the past research in order to keep me up to date I use PubCrawler. Its a website that automatically searches pubmed for all of the things you are interested then sends you a list of new papers to dive in to. I have mine delivered to my inbox every monday morning.
Academic papers have a bit of a learning curve before you really begin to digest them, but once you get the hang of it it takes you to literally the edge of current human knowledge (how cool!), and is more real than a polished textbook which is just trying to get the main idea across.
I hope that helps!

I'm coming from Molecular biology background so I can't really help you about medical textbooks but for the biological side of things I would recommend the following:

Biology of Aging: Observations and Principles by Arking - This was my textbook for the subject. It's really good, comprehensive book that covers methodology, basic principles and some more advanced.

An Introduction to Genetic Analysis by Griffiths - This was recommended for my Genetics class. Quite comprehensive and explains some basic genetic concepts really well (imo).

Molecular Biology of the Gene by Watson - Almost all the basic stuff from molecular biology you'll need. Essentially, The Book.

Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts - Cell biology, you'll need it a lot and Alberts is really good at explaining things even if it's sometimes a bit too wide.

Developmental Biology by Gilberts Developmental biology is, imo, very important and Gilberts is one of the best in the field. Definitely check it out.

There is a few more books on other subjects that are under or above this level (depending on uni this is 2nd or 3rd year of BsC) but you'll get the gist.

Considering the price of these I would recommend you to check out libgen.io (feel free to pm me if you need some help). Also you might want to check out r/longevity , it has much more traffic than this sub. I hope I wasn't confusing, I just woke up and my English is not so good in the morning. :)

I'm kinda in the same boat as you. Only I'm going for PhD so if you need any help or advice feel free to pm me. :)

If you want a textbook, I would recommend one of two books:

Biological Physics by Philip Nelson is a pretty good starting point. The author tried to write a book that is both as accessible as possible and introduces only the most important topics. He covers a lot of interesting, but important material like random walks and molecular machines assuming that the reader does not have a very strong background in either biology or physics. The advantage to this is that he covers only the most important ideas, and in a way that someone with only introductory physics and calculus can understand. The downside is that some of the results are not general, focussing on one dimension instead of three for example, and for the experienced his introductions can be a little redundant. Nelson tries to get around this by having an optional “Track 2” that goes into greater detail and looks are tough problems and original papers.

Physical Biology of the Cell by Rob Phillips is also very good. This book is much longer than the Nelson book and goes into greater detail on a lot of the material. Where Nelson was trying to include only the most important topics, Phillips tries to include everything. The upside is that this book covers more examples and often includes more general results, but it makes for a long read at over a thousand pages. A fairly strong background in some higher level physics, like knowing how to set up and use a partition function, makes reading this book much easier.

I personally like the Phillips book more than the Nelson book, but it depends on where you are at in your major. If you have just taken introductory physics, the Nelson book might be better, if you have taken some higher level courses (especially thermodynamics/statistical mechanics) the Phillips book would be better. Either way I recommend checking them out from the library before you buy them.

Edit: How could I forget this little gem: Can a Biologist Fix a Radio? by Lazebnik. If you want a nice introduction into the philosophy of biophysics, I strongly recommend this well written article.

Regarding medicine: That's going to be a few years down the road. A lot of what you will learn now and in college will have ties in medicine (and said ties are often discussed), but the material they teach in medical school itself requires breadth and depth that takes a while to learn. Still, reading up on random wiki articles and journal papers from time to time keeps things interesting, and it's still a great way to learn. I did that all throughout my undergraduate years. You definitely will not know everything in said articles, but they're still fun to read and you'll know more than if you didn't read them at all.

For online resources, Khan Academy has the best online resources I know of, but I wouldn't rely on them too much. Personally, I'd recommend a self-study course using textbooks/e-books myself.

If you go this route, feel free to buy used books. General biology has not changed much in the past ten years that you need to buy the latest editions of any textbook (and seriously, when comparing $15 to $200, not worth it.)

Books I went through my undergraduate year (Note: I am a molecular and cellular biology major):

• Gen Bio (AP Bio is equivalent to 1/2 this course): 978-0716788515
  
  
• Cellular Biology (Second year lower div): 978-0815320456
  
  
• Cellular Biology (Upper Div): Use above book
  
  These should get you started and keep you busy for a while :) Other than that, Google is your best friend. Search up any words or concepts you don't know. Between Google, university wikis, subreddits like r/biology, YouTube, and increased university presence on the internet, there are a ton of resources out there for you.
  
  PS: Obligatory link to Inner Life of the Cell that we show in every introductory bio class:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyUtbn0O5Y

Depends on what your preferred mode of learning things is. If you like visual passive inputs like lectures or videos, then there are plenty of ressources on youtube even with lectures from ivy league universities.

If you want to take the more formal approach and you like reading I guess there are a lot of introductiory genetics textbooks. You could find a comprehensive list here : https://www.bioexplorer.net/best-genetics-textbooks.html/.

Nowadays its very easy to find free lectures. Do you know MITopencourseware, edx.org, coursera etc.? You can see top-notch videos of actual lectures from MIT/Harvard/Yale whatever, or on edx or coursera you get free interactive courses from top professors that you can take and learn at your own pace.

At my Unversity we started Genetics 101 with the Griffiths "An introduction to genetic analysis".

For molecular biology I very much recommend to get the 'big Alberts' it's the ONE book for molecular biology that you'll have to get anyway no matter what and it's awesome. I love it. Check it out on amazon *link*.

No matter if its molecular biology or genetics, the best tip I can give you is: Do not ignore the "problems" or "questions" section at the end of each chapter, especially when you like these kind of things. They are at least 50% of your learning effect, trust me.

Oh damn sorry, obviously I suffer from the same phenomenon as you do I just focused a bit more on your post and saw that you do not prefer study text books as first primary attempt to get information. So the first and most important life lesson I can try to give you on your way would be: Do not try to fix your 'weaknesses' but exploit your strengths. If you struggle with reading dry science books, don't try to fight through numerous textbooks and hope it to change. Accept your preferences of studying, they evolved during the previous decades of your life according to your way of learning. Try to find a way that makes you want to learn about stuff. If that's not reading, fine accept it. But if you know or guess what type of medium it is that makes you want to learn stuff, exploit that to the very maximum! You sound to function similar to me, I never loved dry textbooks as I am not able to focus for extended amounts of time (found out that I got ADHD during my studies, so that made me understand. If problems focusing on extended readings is a thing for you, consider ADHD too please :)). So the way I learned was by not going to lectures (do not recommend that though) and just zapping through the slides because that way I could choose the speed, look up stuff I did not get on the spot and keep me engaged. Just try to figure out what your most efficient way of learning things is (not only talking about studying, also if you are interested in something for your private life, this also hints towards how you like consuming information). That's an important lesson I learned during my decade at Unversity.

​

If you have any more questions, I'm here to help!

​

source: I studied molecular biology starting 2010. 3 years of bachelors, 2 years of masters, and 4 years of PhD.

I mostly learned from a variety of sources, as there's not an ideal single text on this avenue of research, IMO.

I found general small-angle scattering references for free here and here, the latter being a PDF document from the EMBL small-angle scattering group. For NSE experiments on these sorts of systems, it's pretty much expected you've already done characterization of your samples via small-angle x-ray and/or neutron scattering

I'd also recommend the NIST Summer School course materials as a good and inexpensive way to get started on the neutron spectroscopy side of things. Most of what I'd seen in terms of texts tended to be fairly pricey monographs when starting out, so I'd either borrow stuff from coworkers or my institutional library. There are advanced undergrad/starting grad student texts on x-ray & neutron scattering - e.g., 1 and 2 - but I didn't find out about them until a bit further into my studies.

As might be obvious, there's definitely inspiration and foundational work to be found in the polymer science literature. I went running to Doi and Edwards, for example, when I realized that I needed more background reading in this area, but I'm sure others have their particular favorites in this and related areas.

Insofar as the bio-side of things, well, I've been doing biophysically oriented research since I was an undergrad. I'd suggest a popular biophysics text as well (either Nelson's Biological Physics or Physical Biology of the Cell ) as a starting point/reference. These are aimed towards advanced undergraduates or new grad students as well, mostly due to the interdisciplinary nature of the topics. Speaking of PBoC, one of the authors maintains a publications page where you can check out the PDFs of his group's work.

I think I'll end there, as I think that should be enough pleasure reading for a little while, at least.

Molecular biology of the cell (http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367877862&sr=8-1&keywords=molecular+biology+of+the+cell) and molecular biology of the gene (http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Gene-James-Watson/dp/080539592X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367877885&sr=1-1&keywords=molecular+biology+of+the+gene) are two excellent resources for understanding genetics. If reading is what you're looking to do, begin with peer reviewed journals; textbooks become outdated quickly, but peer-reviewed journals give you a glimpse into the ideas which allowed us to better understand biological phenomena.

The best way to understand genetics is to become actively involved in such matters. Attend seminars with speakers working in cell or molecular biology fields. Get involved in research (this is by far the best thing you can do to improve your understanding of genetics).

Good luck!

Here's my take on it anyways;
Sacred geometry incorporates a lot of numbers and functions that we find in the organization and self-organization of natural systems, fractals being one of these. Fractals don't have to look like the mandelbrot-set, so the universe having random distribution of matter doesn't need to exclude it's fractal properties.
phi-1.618-->correlates to what we perceive as beauty, and also is a factor(among many) in how self-organizing is happening.
pi-3.14-->is a pretty important number when we try to understand circles
Just to name a few common ones.
I've read some comments here and I agree with you that numbers aren't the solution to understanding the universe as a whole,(if I've understood you correctly) but it is the best language we have constructed so far in doing so. Math isn't natures language, it is human's language to understanding the many different languages of nature.
So I guess sacred geometry isn't sacred, but just reflects what we find that is important to understand nature, utilizing these numbers in art end up having good aesthetic properties.
I can recommend this book to you; Fractal Geometry in Biological Systems
Fractal geometry is in its infancy still, I think we will find the applications for it in a lot of things, and it has been with us consciously and sub-consciously for a long time before the popularization of it by Mr. Mandelbrot--> Fractals in the heart of African designs

One thing you could try to do is to get a summer internship in a lab. I know a bunch of graduate schools offer research experience for highschool students. If you're near a major city with a graduate school, I'll bet you could find something.

For example: University of Texas-Southwestern, University of Washington, and University of Alabama, Birmingham all have programs, which I was able to find with just a quick Google search: "[graduate school name] highschool research" did it for me.

Anyway, I know summer's probably pretty much over for you now, but in the mean time, the internet is a really useful tool. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I didn't really start learning the really cool and interesting cellular and molecular biology stuff until I got to college, and hindsight being 20/20 and all, it might just be wishful thinking on my part to think I could have learned a bunch of stuff online, BUT, if you want to give it a shot, PubMed has a bunch of free biology textbooks, this one is pretty good, but is a pain to browse. What you have to do is find the section you want in the table of contents, copy the TITLE , not the Section number, paste it into the search bar, and find the link with that title name in the results. Though you can get it on Amazon for like $7. It is a 14 year old book now, so some of it might be outdated, and a bunch of it might be too much detail. I don't really know.

Hope this helps.

Molecular Biology of the cell - Great textbook to get you started. It is really comprehensive but not challenging to read. The diagrams are informative but not overbearing. The author clearly cares a great deal about the subject.

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059

Molecular Biology - Weaver - This one is nice because it keys in on many of the landmark experiments and scientists who contributed greatly to the field:

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Associate-College-Sciences/dp/0073525324/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1L89I1QHNC7HX&keywords=molecular+biology+weaver&qid=1571969517&sprefix=molecular+biology+weaver%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1

If you want something smaller and more like a narrative, give Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes - A Short Course a try.

https://www.amazon.com/Recombinant-DNA-Genomes-Course-Edition/dp/0716728664

[Physics PhD, theoretical soft condensed matter physics/active matter]
In short, I think interdisciplinary research is always a good thing. Both sides benefit from different ways of thinking and different methodology, which leads to an even greater understanding.

Long version:
Biology (unlike physics or mathematics) contains an “-ology” suffix, which means it is the study of something, specifically life. Whereas physics is more of way understanding and distilling nature through universal principles, and mathematics is a tool or a language to develop those principles and more. Physics/mathematics and biology meet most commonly when biologists borrow physics/math tools to understand new biology. For example, the use of optical tweezers (part of this year’s physics Nobel prize) to accurately control proteins in the subcellular environment in vivo is a vital tool in understanding vesicle transport (if I’m not mistaken). Or in general, the use of more mathematics to make biology more quantitative may help make biology experiments more reproducible.

A second way biology and physics meet is when physicist use biology as a system to understand new physics of things out of equilibrium (or active), complex/adaptive networks, or living. For example, William Bialek and Jeremy England develop general theories for living systems. Mathematics is used as a language to think about these theories. One of my favorite analogies is, “if mathematics is the language of nature, physics is the poetry”.

As for mathematics and biology without physics, ecology is a field that has been a fruitful endeavor for both math and biology.

Lastly, I’d like to add that biology is not being replaced by physics/math. The goals of the fields are inherently different. But where there’s some overlap in these goals, teams collaborate and even more can be achieved/understood than separately. This is beautiful science.

P.S. Two great textbooks where biology, math and physics (and some chemistry) meet are “Biophysics” and “Physical Biology of the Cell”.

1. Life as a self-replication metabolic reaction can arise out of the agglomeration of primitive chemical methods of doing so. There are many theories about how this occurred, but they all involve rudimentary protein synthesis. The interesting thing is, the conditions in which life first emerged may be inimitable in part because of how much the world changed as a result of life. This is the "gaia hypothesis" in its least mystical form, a sort of biospheric understanding of life. The literature on primitive life is very interesting and many people are working on protocells, which would sort of be an ur-biological process.
   
   Check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-Life-Contemporary-Perspectives/dp/0521517753/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1374767180&sr=8-2&keywords=mark+bedau
   
   And also this: http://www.amazon.com/Protocells-Bridging-Nonliving-Living-Matter/dp/0262182688/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1374767180&sr=8-6&keywords=mark+bedau
   
   
   
2. Life is, by some reckoning, synonymous with reproduction (and or metabolism) and this makes this question sort of hard to answer. A species which has the drive to reproduce though and can pass on that drive, will, by simple mathematics, spread that quality.
   
   Natural selection requires three things:
   
3. Variation in traits and their fitness, defined as effect on reproduction, in a population
   
4. Heritability
   
5. Reproduction
   
   Natural selection necessarily follows from these premises. This is why most creationists do not deny micro-evolution. It's undeniable. Cells clearly evolve and so on. What they contest is evolution leading to speciation, or humans and so on.
   
   Stop using teleology, the language of purpose. Think of it more this way, if X happens to come along and benefits reproduction while being produced by it, it will spread. As such, reproduction on a meta-evolutionary level is necessary for life, as we know it, to exist and the drive to reproduce is a very useful trait. Those without the drive to reproduce would reproduce less and die off more and there would be fewer instances of that trait or lack thereof
   
   
6. Ability before drive.
   
   
7. We are always in transitional forms, species are not immutable essences, although it is easy to think of them as such. There is no such thing as a transitional form except retroactively, its a moniker to efficiently describe species which died off but gave birth to many different modern species.
   
   Or a better way to think about it, is, if you took say a species of flower or bee and arbitrarily selected a few qualities by which to separate them (all flowers with this many petals, this color etc, vs that one) so that they cannot reproduce with each other, while varying the ecology as well, over time, they will probably no longer be able to reproduce with each other, at that point, they are different species, but when they can still reproduce with each other, even as they start to genetically vary significantly, they are transitional.

I wouldn't be worried about taking bio classes as an undergrad. It'd be more useful to take introductory chemistry, organic chemistry, and some biochemistry, but even that isn't necessary. Any competent biology graduate program should bring you up to speed pretty quickly. (This textbook is pretty good, too.)

This wiki page is a good place to start to see the ways in which a math background can be applied to biological problems.

You might want to check out /r/askacademia, /r/gradschool, and /r/gradadmissions for tips on applying to programs as an international student (if I'm reading your intentions correctly).

You also might find this collection of links on efficient study habits helpful.

I can tell you what I think was the most importent stuff we have been doing so far in my bachelor.

BioChemistry

• Properties of aminoacids, peptides and proteins
  
• Function of proteins and enzymes
  
• enzyme kinetics
  
  Cellbiology
  
  
• Organisation of eukaryotic cells
  
• Development from one celled organisms to multicelled orgaism and evolution
  
• Compartiments of the cell and their functions and morphology(this includes stuff like DNA replication and ATP Synthasis and translation and transcription of proteins)
  
• Transportmechanisms of small and big molecules from outside the cell to the inside and vice versa . transportation within the cell as well(eg endocythic pathway)
  
• Signaltransduction
  
  IT Basics
  
  
• Boolean Logic
  
• Understanding of the number representation systems(eg. binar or hex)
  
• Understanding of floating point representation and why it leads to rounding errors
  
• Understanding the Neuman Architecture
  
• Basics of graph theory
  
• Grammars
  
• Automata and Touring Machines
  
• Basics of InformationTheory(eg. Entropy)
  
• Basics of Datacompressions (not very important in your case)
  
• Basic Hashing Algorithms
  
• Runtime analysis(all the O notation stuff)
  
  Operating Systems
  
  
• Basics of linux(eg commands like cd, mkdir, ls, mv, check this out )
  
• basic programms within linux(eg grep, wget, nano )
  
• basics of bash programming
  
  BioinformaticsBasics
  
  
• Pairwise Sequence Alignment
  
• Database Similarity Search
  
• Multiple Sequence Alignment
  
• Hidden Markov Models
  
• Gene and promoter Prediction
  
• Phylogenetic basics
  
• Protein and RNA 3D structure prediction
  
  So this is just supposed to be some kind of reference you can use to learning. You probably don't need to work through all of this.
  But I strongly suggest reading about Biochemistry and Cellbiology(a nice book is Molecular Biology of the Cell) as it is really important for understanding bioinformatics.
  Also give the link I posted in the Operating System part a look. Try to just use linux for a month as a lot of bioinformatics applications are written for linux and its nice to see the contrast to windows.
  Regarding programming I suggest you search for a book that combines python + bioinformatics(something like this). If you want to focus on the programming part you would ideally start in ASM then switch to C then to Java and then to python.(Just to give you an impression why: ASM gives you a great insight into how the CPU works and how it acesses RAM. C is on a higher level and you start thinking about organising data and defining its structure in RAM. Java adds another layer onto that - you get objects, which make it easy for you to organize your data in blocks and there is no need for you to manage the RAM by hand with pointers like in C. But you still need to tell your variables specifically what they are. So if you have a variable that safes a Text in it you have to declare it as a string. Finally you arrived at python which is a scripting language. There is no more need for you to tell variables what they are - the compiler decides it automatically. All the annoying parts are automated. So your code becomes shorter as you don't need to type as much. The philosophy behind scripting languages is mostly to provide languages that are designed for humans not for machines).But it is kind of a overkill in your situation. Just focus on python. One final thing regarding programming just keep practicing. It is really hard at the beginning but once you get it, it starts making fun to programm as it becomes a creative way of expressing your logic.
  Let's get to the bioinforamtics part. I don't think you really need to study this really hard but it's nice to be ahead of your commilitones. I recommand reading this book. You might also check out Rosalind and practice your python on some bioinformatics problems.
  Edit: If you want I can send you some books as pdf files if you PM me your email adress
  

I know you asked for online sources, and you've been given some good ones, but if you can take this book I'd recommend it. Really easy to follow, lots of pictures, and comprehensive. Good luck in your exams!

A good introductory text on the statistical mechanics of biopolymers (including a number of models of DNA) is Ken Dill's Molecular Driving Forces. Much of it is undergraduate level, and it will necessarily include simple models that are primarily pedagogical, but they are nonetheless incredibly useful tools for connecting to the literature in a deeper way. For example, two state models can deliver some surprising results despite how simple they are -- such models show up in the literature in the form of elastic network models (ENMs), where two well-defined configurations are used to construct harmonic approximations to the state space. These can then be used to model transitions between states across the potential surface. ENMs aren't as relevant to DNA, as far as I know (I work on a membrane transporter at the moment), but is representative of the simpler tools used in the field.

Additionally, Rob Phillips has some very useful texts (that emphasize an intuition of the length- and time-scales involved): Physical Biology of the Cell and Cell Biology by the Numbers.

Hope that helps!

Hey H0RSED1K it's good to hear that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

I just want to graduate as soon as possible - I'd rather spend 40 hours a week working and getting paid, then 80 hours a week studying and paying for it.

One text we used in one of my classes was great, it is Molecular Biology of the Cell
I would love to read this entire text over an 8 month period or so, and complete the problems book

I feel that this would solidify my basic knowledge in biology.
Following this I would be able to target specific areas of interest.

I'm having errors accessing my Amazon wish list, but some of the books I can remember are as follows:

• Introduction to Biological Physics for the Health and Life Sciences
  
  
• Lab Ref, Volume 1: A Handbook of Recipes, Reagents, and Other Reference Tools for Use at the Bench
  
  
• Power, Sex, Suicide
  
  
• Short Protocols in Molecular Biology
  
  Also, you can consult some of the free courses online (MIT's OCW, Coursera.org, iTunes U, Open.edu) and once you obtain the syllabus you can review the material at your leisure. There are also sites like BenchFly.com, Jove.com that have videos of lab techniques and experiments. I presently don't have the time to review these in detail, so they are on my post-graduation queue.
  
  If you want to do this right, you'll probably have to hire a tutor to answer questions you might have.

This book, Molecular Biology of the Cell is, as far as I go, the best cell biology book ever. I love cell biology and have taken a number of advanced classes based on cell bio, and this book has helped me go through those classes painlessly.

I highly recommend it. Here's an amazon link to the version that I have, but I think they have a newer version of it. Good luck!!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0815332181/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/188-1049771-5309318

Here's some lighter reading I've liked:

• Analog Circuit Design: Art, Science and Personalities
  
• The Chip : How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution
  
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  
• Feynamn Lectures on Computation
  
  Readable, but more hardcore
  
  Hardware:
  
  
• The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits, Second Edition
  
  
  Mathy:
  
  
• A New Kind of Science. I liked this book a lot, it is worth the price just for the interesting pictures. Make up your mind for yourself, and don't let negative reviewers unduly influence you.
  
• Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
  
• Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms
  
  
  Programmy:
  
  
• Mastering Regular Expressions
  
  Unixy:
  
  
• Unix Power Tools
  
  
  Off the wall:
  
  
• Molecular Biology of the Cell
  
  

i did my phd in a related field. it seems like you will have enough math and that some more computer programming could be a good thing. the main pitfall in this kind of stuff is that people want to do a bunch of math that is more complicated than it needs to be without tying it back to the biological system.

obviously you will need help from senior people with that, but it seems to me that the best thing you could do to prepare is read a bunch about motor proteins and the cytoskeleton. every cell-biology textbook should have a few chapters on this. i recommend this book if you want something with a bit of math.

if you want, PM me the name of the person you'll be working for. odds are good i know a bit about what they are doing.

Yeah, I'm definitely with you on this. Even after leaving the organization I have real problems believing in the more controversial aspects of evolution. What is more unsettling (to me) though, is assuming that all of evolutionary theory is entirely correct, that doesn't really give us an explanation for how life began which I think is really the more meaningful question. Assuming that life did, say, start off as a simple single cell, it's unusual that we have such a hard time even modeling what such an organism would look like.

I mean such a simple cell would at least need to be able to:

• Self replicate
  
• Provide energy for self replication
  
• Remove waste
  
• Have invented RNA/DNA
  
• Protect self from outside world, while filtering for useful compounds, and expelling toxins.
  
  These are not simple problems in any shape or form. For example, DNA of the average human cell holds 1.6 Gb of information (3.2 billion base pairs at base 4 = 4 combinations per codon, 16 combinations per base pair or 256 combinations per 2 base pairs = 1 byte). Gigabyte level storage has only been generally available for about a decade, yet we're claiming that original cell just sort of invented that technology on the spot. Similarly, self replication as a technology simply doesn't exist outside of the natural world. But again, the first cell already is able to do this? That seems mysterious to say the least.
  
  I'm currently reading through Microbiology Of The Cell, and I just find that life looks more and more 'mechanical'. I'm not particularly beholden to a particular worldview, and if evolution is true then great, that at least gives us one solid answer that we can hold on to, but honestly more and more naturalism just really seems unconvincing.

You sound like me when I was your age, and now my daughter who's getting a physics degree but going into medicine. But that's the exact same thing she complains about in her biology related classes - that there's too much emphasis on memorization and not enough on understanding.

You should get a book on molecular cell biology. I can't think of any right off hand, I just went to the Half Price Books and bought a couple of textbooks. But the thing is, having already gotten a physics degree I already knew about electron orbitals and such. I don't know of any resources that start from the aspect you're looking for.

edit: Actually, take a look at Molecular and Cell Biology for Dummies. If you click on Surprise Me, you'll get random pages to give an idea of what the book has in it. Looks pretty good.

Just graduated in may with my BS in Biology. I used Essential Cell Biology by Alberts for my cell bio class. I'll be honest in saying across my 4 years in the major this was the best book. The illustrations and diagrams are incredible and the book is clear. The reviews speak for itself, as someone said below you can probably get it for free from a torrent.

http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Cell-Biology-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341296

No problem! It's been fun to try and articulate this stuff again, it's been a couple years since I thought about biochemistry. With that in mind, I'm probably not the right guy to give safety tips. My background is in basic research, not so applied to sports or dieting per se but just understanding biology.

Do you use Google Scholar? You can find countless technical scientific papers and more general reviews about anything humanity is investigating.

Review on Insulin signalling in carb and lipid metabolism.

Technical paper on whether carbs or protein is better for weightloss on fat-reduced diet in obese people

Ketogenic diet causes hepatic insulin resistance in mice.

There's tonnes of it. You could also get an undergraduate biochemistry/molecular biology text book such as Essential Cell Biology.

Happy hunting!

It probably would not be a bad idea to get some knowledge of basic biology. Biochemistry, molecular biology, and genetics are probably the big three sub-disciplines you want to familiarize yourself with, but to do that you need to have a good idea of basic biology. Campell Biology is the textbook of choice for freshman biology. Molecular Biology of the Cell is a fantastic book for molecular and cellular biologists. I, unfortunately, don't know of any good books for synthetic biology itself, but these two can give you a start.

I bought this book on Amazon and it was pretty helpful. As long as you do study, it’s not terribly difficult. Good luck!

CLEP® Biology Book + Online (CLEP Test Preparation) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0738611026/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_kp6IDbMN9WF36

Albert's Molecular Biology of the Cell. It is a very user friendly book on biology. It's pretty much considered the cream of the crop of biology and molecular biology textbooks. It will introduce you to basic science, as well as go as far in depth as you would prefer. Outside of that, journals such as Nature, Cell, Science. Good luck. Also amazon link, not to promote them, but to show what the book looks like.

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059

this was by far the easiest nbme of my first year.
yes, it does cover a lot of cell bio but i don't remember using anything else other than BRS and Pretest to study for it.
i had a pretty solid cell bio background though, so that may have been it. but generally speaking everyone in my class passed the shelf without problems.

One of the standard general bio textbooks is Campbell Biology. Any edition is fine, but I think the 8th edition is the sweet spot for a balance between age and cost. I wasn't a very big fan of the genetics textbook that my university used, but I do remember the cell biology textbook being pretty approachable (Essential Cell Biology, $10 used).

I highly recommend Molecular Biology of the Cell. This is a graduate level cell/molecular bio book and goes into pretty good detail on a ton of topics. I know a ton a people with a Physics background who used this book to get a knowledge basis in bio (myself included).

I used Human Molecular Genetics by Strachan and Read for a Human Genetics university course a while back. It has the basics in the early chapters, but also goes into more depth regarding the topics you're interested in. It looks like the newest edition has a new section on Human Evolutionary Genetics: https://www.amazon.com/Human-Molecular-Genetics-Tom-Strachan/dp/0815345895/ref=asc_df_0815345895/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=265989256760&hvpos=1o15&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11363577135974897694&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9023224&hvtargid=pla-645787829197&psc=1

​

Human Evolutionary Genetics by Jobling et al has a more specific focus, but is a bit dated (2013): https://www.amazon.com/Human-Evolutionary-Genetics-Mark-Jobling/dp/0815341482/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=human+evolutionary+genetics&qid=1571693034&sr=8-1

I'm going to walk through what I think is important to know about transcription by Pol II in eukaryotes; it's similar but more complex that prokaryotes and the transcriptional mechanisms of Pol I and III are much less well understood.

First we often have a TATA box ~25bp from the transcriptional start site (TSS) where the complex of TFIID (the TF's stand for transcription factor) and TATA Binding Protein (TBP) recognize an available TATA box and bind to it.

Next a bunch of other general transcription factors arrange around the TSS and they recruit and stabilize the binding of Pol II. TFIIF then catalyzes the phosphorylation of the C-Terminal Domain (CTD) tail which causes Pol II to release from the general TFs and began transcription in the 3' -> 5' direction (thus generating transcripts in 5' - 3' orientation)

• At approximately the same time TFIIF & DNA Helicases pry open the double helix allowing Pol II to sort of just do it's thing and synthesize RNA transcripts from the DNA template.
  
  While the RNA transcript is being made capping proteins are recruited to add the 7-methylguanine cap to the 5' end of the new transcript (This serves to maintain stability and will later be a recognition site of proteins).
  
  Additionally RNA splicing also occurs (usually) before the RNA transcript is completely transcribed. A large nuclear riboprotein (complex of nuclear RNAs and protein) call the Spliceosome uses 2 trans esterification reactions to clip out the introns and link together the exons (this is another large story I would stick with knowing what I said unless you need to know a lot about RNA splicing)
  
  Pol II keeps elongating until it hits the stop signal in which case Pol II releases from the DNA and the RNA transcript is now ready for more precessing and then export from the nucleus.
  
  Once the transcript is released Poly-A polymerase (PAP) adds ~200 adenosine monophosphates to the 3' end which is important for recognition by poly-A binding proteins necessary for circularization of the transcript for translation.
  
  This is all taken from Alberts - I can send you a PDF of it if you'd like.
  
  
  Edit - forgot about poly adenylation

Does she like to read? There's lots of really good everyday reading genetics books, like this or this for example.

The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey.

https://www.amazon.ca/Epigenetics-Revolution-Rewriting-Understanding-Inheritance/dp/0231161174

It's a pretty good read, could have used a bit more editing -- it'll give you a flavour of some of the key findings, unusual anecdotes, history of the field, etc. It's from 2013 so will not have the latest details.

Postgrad geneticist here...I’d personally recommend molecular biology of the cell. It starts with basic principles and then gets increasingly more complex as it progresses.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0815344643/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1520383837&sr=8-2

It may be worth picking up an earlier second edition as the content doesn’t tend to vary greatly. Especially in well established concepts.

I've been using books from these guys. They have online practice tests which makes evaluating yourself a lot easier :)

http://www.amazon.com/CLEP%C2%AE-Biology-Book-Online-Preparation/dp/0738611026

Wow, you really have nothing at this point, Lidocaine.

Pick up these books to get yourself a solid foundation:

https://www.amazon.com/Biology-Dummies-Ren%C3%A9-Fester-Kratz/dp/0470598751/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Dummies-Fester-Kratz/dp/0470430664/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Dummies-Ren%C3%A9-Fester-Kratz/dp/1118006720

I'm currently reading and finding utterly fascinating The Epigenetics Revolution.

Honestly I've never seen anything that even attempts to go over the sheer vastness of what goes on inside a cell. The best thing I can think of is to look over the movements and organization of phospholipids on the outer membrane, receptor tyrosine kinases, G-protein coupled receptors, and nuclear transcription factors. That just gives a very small sample of how many interactions the cell has with the outside environment. I know this is probably not what you're looking for, but this is currently the bible for cell/molecular biology:
http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059

I think Physical Biology of the Cell is quite good.

Most of my sources are textbooks and wikipedia for a quick search... On my desk I have Molecular Biology of the Cell and Principles of Neural Science both of which are decent reference texts to have on your shelf. Beyond that, I think I can scrounge up a few good reviews on the subject if there's any interest, but this being Reddit, most people don't have access to papers behind paywalls...

I'd second Alberts as a recommendation. The edition that is freely searchable at NCBI is the fourth edition. There is a also a newer fifth edition.

My gift to you

If you look online you can find pdfs of

"Physical Biology of the Cell"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503

This is a book that basically looks at biology through a physicist's lens, rather than a biochemist's.

You could also try "Biological Physics" by Nelson.


These books spend a good chunk of time dealing with topics such as Statistical Mechanics, Self-assembling structures, Polymer Physics, etc...

A couple of years ago, in a talk, Aubrey waved two big books when the topic came up about how to get started. The books were:

• Essential Cell Biology
  
• Molecular Biology of the Cell
  
  (and SENS would most likely also recommend keeping Ending Aging handy).

I studied molecular cell biology for 3 years while at university. I used the standard B.Sc course materials recommended by the professors. Not limited to texts such as Molecular bioology of the cell and Biochemistry

The two canonical molecular bio texts are "Alberts" (Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts, et al) and Lodish (Molecular Cell Biology by Lodish et al).

These may not be specific enough if you want in-depth info on a particular area, but they'll get you started on just about anything you want to know.

If you want textbooks, here's the books I would suggest (and the order in which to read them):

1. Campbell Biology to learn about general biology at an introductory level
   
   
2. Concepts of Genetics to learn about genetics
   
   
3. Molecular Cell Biology to learn about molecular biology and cell biology

Lodish.

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Cell-Biology-Lodish/dp/0716776014/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380731997&sr=8-1&keywords=lodish+molecular+biology

I think thats the old edition, but as far as where I've been, it's the standard.

Went to med school for 4 years. Most expensive text book I spent on was ~$34 bucks That Apple book is still 20 times that.

http://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1370137610&sr=1-1

That should be a decent start. If that's too elementary I could make some other recommendations.

Here you go.

Book in question https://www.amazon.com/Physical-Biology-Cell-Rob-Phillips/dp/0815344503

[Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes - A Short Course, Third Edition (Watson, Recombinant DNA)]
(http://www.amazon.com/Recombinant-DNA-Genomes-Course-Edition/dp/0716728664/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331354542&sr=1-5&tag=bookforyoudm-20)

The Epigenetics Revolution: How Modern Biology Is Rewriting Our Understanding of Genetics, Disease, and Inheritance:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0231161174/ref=pd_aw_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51xwQxZljmL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL100_SR100%2C100_&psc=1&refRID=Y92YH4WPFMCNMYNTFAYF

For example:
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Histology-Cell-Biology-Self-Assessment/dp/0071623434/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422159810&sr=1-3&keywords=pre+test&pebp=1422159816632&peasin=71623434

There's a book you should read called "The Epigenetics Revolution" that answers all those questions and many others.
http://amzn.com/0231161174

This is a classic text book for molecular biology