Books                                                                                                                     Angewandte
                                                                                                                                                     Chemie
                                                            Conventionalapproachestodayseemto            ence of separable subsystems. Other
                                                            differ only slightly from the way our        techniques discussed include applica-
                                                            grandparents would have attacked the         tions of entropy metric construction,
                                                            problem, namely: 1)break down the            entropy reduction methods, and genetic
                                                            complexity of the system by isolating        algorithms.
                                                            and characterizing individual reaction           The main merit of the approach
                                                            steps, and 2) propose a reaction mecha-      described is that it addresses one of
                                                            nism constructed from a reasonable           chemistry=skeyquestions:howtoderive
                                                            sequence of elementary steps. The            a reaction mechanism without relying
                                                            approach presented in Determination          on educated guesses and on “chemical
                                                            of Complex Reaction Mechanisms is            intuition”, which although sometimes
                                                            profoundly different. It is based on the     powerful is often misleading. Specifi-
                                                            simple fact that today chemists are          cally, the book provides intriguing tools
                                                            equipped with a powerful arsenal of          that might be applicable to many com-
               Determination of Complex                     analytical techniques. These techniques      plex systems in the various modern
               Reaction Mechanisms                          allow the simultaneous monitoring of         branches of chemistry and biology.
                                                            hundreds of different chemical species,      However, it should be clearly stated
                                     Analysis of Chemi-     thus providing an enormous amount of         that these tools have been tested for
                                     cal, Biological, and   data regarding the full reaction mecha-      only a few examples. The topics covered
                                     Genetic Networks.      nism.Themainvalueofthisbookisthat            are essentially a compilation of the
                                     By John Ross, Igor     it discusses experimental protocols and      remarkable results obtained by the
                                     Schreiber, and Mar-    theoretical methods for the rational         authors during the last 15 years. How-
                                     cel O. Vlad. Oxford    elucidation of reaction networks and         ever, the book is definitely more than a
                                     University Press,      their kinetic parameters by utilizing        collection of loosely connected research
                                     Oxford 2005.           such techniques. In other words, it is a     articles. The authors make a serious, and
                                     226pp., hardcover      manual that describes nontraditional         in my opinion successful, effort to pres-
                                     $94.50.—ISBN           methodologies for the determination of       ent complex and unconventional topics
                                     0-19-517868-8          reaction mechanisms from kinetic data        in a coherent, interesting, and useful
                                                            sets.                                        way.    How quickly       this   powerful
               Thelastdecadeshaveseenaremarkable                The book is organized in 13 chap-        approach will be embraced by a large
               advancement in our understanding of          ters, and also contains contributions        number of experimentalists remains to
               molecular and supramolecular struc-          from Arkin, Oefner, and Zamboni.             be seen. This brings me to the question:
               tures in chemistry, materials science,       Following a very brief introduction of       who is the intended reader? Clearly, to
               and biology. While these advances            basic terms and definitions, Chapter 3       appreciate    this  book the potential
               haveundoubtedlyenjoyedthelimelight,          reviews some of the data-mining meth-        reader should have a solid background
               surprising and profound progress has         odologies suitable for the analyses dis-     in elementary statistics, linear algebra,
               also occurred in the field of chemical       cussed in this book. These methodolo-        andcalculus. Those who want to use the
               kinetics. The book Determination of          gies range from mass spectrometry and        techniques described should also be
               Complex Reaction Mechanisms,bycapillaryelectrophoresistoDNAmicro-                         willing to write their own computer
               Ross, Schreiber, and Vlad, describes         arrays and genome-wide analyses of           codes. Beyond that, I can envision a
               some of these achievements in the            mRNA and proteins. Specific types of         broad readership, which ranges from
               form of a 226-page treatise. It is worth     data analysis are presented in the main      graduate students in physical and bio-
               mentioning that John Ross, Professor         part of the book. Chapter 5, for exam-       physical chemistry to senior scientists in
               Emeritus at Stanford University and          ple, discusses the response of complex       other fields who face the notorious
               1999 National Medal of Science lau-          systems to pulse perturbations, from         problem of determining reaction mech-
               reate, has been for decades one of the       which causal chemical connectivities         anisms or similar network features for
               leading figures in this field. Together      can be derived. This interesting chapter     complex chemical, biochemical, phar-
               with Berry and Rice, he also authored a      starts  with the analysis of simple          maceutical, or genetic systems.
               well-known     textbook     on   physical    unbranched chain reactions, and leads
               chemistry.                                   into an experimental case study, a part      Oliver Steinbock
                   Determination of Complex Reaction        of glycolysis, which is discussed in Chap-   Department of Chemistry and
               Mechanisms assumes a basic knowledge         ter 6. This example is examined further      Biochemistry
               of chemical kinetics. However, the way       in the discussion of “correlation metric     Florida State University
               that it approaches chemical kinetics is      construction” of reaction mechanisms,        Tallahassee (USA)
               highly unconventional, interesting, and      whichIconsidertobeveryexciting.The
               useful. The key question behind most of      central aim of this technique is to yield    DOI: 10.1002/anie.200585406
               this book is “How do I unravel the           reaction diagrams similar to those that a
               mechanism of a complex chemical, bio-        chemist would draw for complex mech-
               chemical, or genetic reaction network?”      anisms, or at least to indicate the pres-
               Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2006, 45, 7491           32006Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim                                          7491