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Home Reviews The Microbial Challenge: Science, Disease, and Public Health (2nd ed.)
The Microbial Challenge: Science, Disease, and Public Health (2nd ed.) Print E-mail
Robert I. Krasner. ASM Press, 2010, 476 p., $121.95 (softcover).

Vast in scope and diverse in nature, microbiology is an especially difficult subject for nonmajors, many of whom have had little to no exposure to the field. Therefore, educators often find themselves walking the fine line between boring students with generalities and alienating students with an overabundance of scientific jargon.

The Microbial Challenge: Science, Disease, and Public Health aims to both interest and inform those unfamiliar with the world of microbiology by providing a broad-spectrum view of the subject, as it relates directly to society and the world today. This includes, but is not limited to, major topics such as epidemiology of disease, immune response, and biological weapons. The Microbial Challenge (2nd ed.) is organized into four main parts titled "The Challenge," "Microbial Disease," "Meeting the Challenge," and "Current Challenges." Each of these parts is further divided into sequential chapters, each of which begins with a preview and outline, and ends with an overview as well as a list of questions meant for student self-evaluation. Moreover, key terms are bolded within each chapter to emphasize important concepts and facilitate students' acquisition of microbiology vocabulary. Overall, the structure of this text is well defined and logical, which helps to show how each topic is related to the next. For example, part three, "Meeting the Challenge," is broken down into three chapters: "The Immune Response," "Control of Microbial Diseases," and "Partnerships in the Control of Infectious Diseases." The first is an introduction to the fundamentals of the human immune system, with most of the emphasis on the duality of nonspecific and specific immunity and the basic anatomy of relevant organs such as the thymus and lymph nodes. This is followed by a chapter highlighting the next level of defenses, which includes more external forces such as sanitation and drugs, and their role in immune responses. The final chapter of part three moves on to focus on disease control on a more macroscopic level with a discussion of how local, national, and international levels of health organizations function and impact public health. Taken together, these three chapters provide students with specific concepts as well as a general idea of how the levels of the immunity hierarchy are interrelated.

Compared to the first edition, The Microbial Challenge, Human-Microbe Interactions, the second edition covers more material, is more dynamic and, as the author describes, more "userfriendly." Part II, "Microbial Diseases," has been added to the second edition and covers approximately 50 diseases ranging from sexually transmitted diseases to arthropod-borne diseases. Also, a chapter on bacterial genetics has been added in order to review genetics basics and introduce the unique genetics of bacteria. In terms of chapter layout, images, tables, feature boxes, and author's notes are fluidly integrated into the text, with the goal of making the learning process more interactive and effective. The use of various types of visual aids helps to simplify complex topics to one new to microbiology and furthers students' interest in the subject matter by relating these foreign concepts to the world around them. As a result, the second edition is much more accessible to students and is more conducive to classroom discussions than the first. It should be noted that the images in the second edition are especially unique, as many of them are personal photos taken by the author himself.

Dr. Krasner is also the first to point out one of the main shortcomings of his book, which is that it does not contain any laboratory instruction or experimental methodologies. This is due to the assumption that a nonmajor course would not have a mandatory laboratory component. However, he does provide recommendations as to where one might find appropriate lab exercises in the preface and also goes on to suggest supplements such as newspaper and magazine articles, which may prove more relevant to nonmajor students. Along the same lines, the textbook does not offer clinical cases, which are often used to encourage applied learning in public health schools. It does, on the other hand, have a companion website, which contains summaries, quizzes, and additional links to help students learn and review.

The Microbial Challenge is a well-organized textbook that strikes a balance between the basic sciences and real world applications in the form of history and current worldwide health. Written specifically with nonmajors in mind, The Microbial Challenge Science, Disease, and Public Health does an excellent job of introducing and explaining core aspects of microbiology and is also a good source for science majors who are looking for an overview of major points or for those interested in public health.

Christine H. Tran
Christos Stathopoulos
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona