Recommended Reading Lists

In order to achieve your academic potential at Bath, we would expect all applicants on
the Masters programmes to have a strong fundamental knowledge in the area of
specialisation. Part of the assessments at Bath will rely on skills such as essay writing,
critical thinking, analysis of research papers and presentations from external speakers.
Hence, in order to pass and achieve your academic potential, it is vital that have a
thorough understanding in the subject.
To support your preparation, we would recommend you have an understanding of
topics covered in the following publications that have been recommended by
Programme Tutors. If you do not have access to these articles or texts, you could check
the chapter topics and get an overview from other sources such as alternative
textbooks, e-books, articles on Google Scholar, or free Open Educational Resources.
We would also STRONGLY encourage you to familiarise yourself with reading primary
research papers (peer-reviewed research articles in journals such as Nature, Science,
Cell etc). Reading, understanding, assimilating and ideally being able to critically
analyse these papers will play a big part in your academic study at Bath. Sites such as
PubMed or Google Scholar is a good place to start. Good luck!
MSc / MRes in Biosciences
1. Life: the science of biology (9e) by Sadava et al (WH Freeman Publ)
2. Biology by Campbell (9e) by Campbell and Reece (Pearson Publ)
MSc / MRes in Developmental Biology and MRes Regenerative Medicine
1. Principles of development (2e) by L Wolpert et al (Society for Developmental
biol) Basics primer
2. Developmental Biology (9e) by Scott F Gilbert (Sinauer Associates) Advanced
text.
MSc / MRes in Evolutionary and Population Biology**
The first is a general text, and the second an excellent pot-boiler.
1. Freeman S, Herron JC. 2007. Evolutionary Analysis. Fourth Edition. Pearson
Education, New York. http://wps.prenhall.com/esm_freeman_evol_3/
2. Shubin N. 2009. Your Inner Fish: A journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the
Human Body. Penguin, London. http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/book.html
MSc / MRes in Molecular Microbiology

1. Brock Biology of Microorganisms (10th edition) by Michael Madigan, John

Martinko and Jack Parker (Pearson Publ) A basics primer
2. Mims' Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (5th Edition) By Cedric A. Mims,
Anthony Nash & John Stephen (Elsevier Publ) an advanced text
3. Bacterial Pathogenesis: A molecular approach (2nd edition) by AA Salyers and DD
Whitt (American Soc Microbiol Publ) an advanced text

MSc in Medical Biosciences

1. Molecular Biology of the Cell (6e) by Alberts, Johnson et al (Garland Science Publ)
2. Molecular Biology in Medicine (1e) by Cox and Sinclair (Blackwell Science Publ)
basics primer
3. Cell Biology (6e) by G. Karp (Wiley Publ) basics primer
4. Introduction to Cancer Biology (free e-book) available at
http://bookboon.com/uk/textbooks/biology/introduction-to-cancer-biology
MSc / MRes in Molecular Plant Sciences
1. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants (2002) by Buchanan, Gruissem and
Jones (Wiley-Blackwell Publ).
MSc / MRes in Protein Structure and Function
1. Protein structure and Function (1e) by Gregory Petsko and Dagmar Ringe (OUP
Publ) Basics primer
2. Introduction to protein structure (2e) by Carl Branden and John Tooze (Garland
Science Publ) Advanced text
Once you are registered on the university website you will have access to, amongst
other things, the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences via www.els.net
**
Having some basic programming skills and knowledge of statistics would help you
achieve more in this course. Useful resources to help you with this are
https://www-dawsonera-com.ezp2.bath.ac.uk/
Programming Python
Mastering regular expressions
Practical statistics for environmental and biological scientists
Foundation maths
Evolution
Everyday probability and statistics
Molecular evolution

GENERIC TEXTBOOKS
Practical skills in biomolecular sciences
Practical skills in biology
Introduction to proteins
Biology of the prokaryotes