Book Description

The 21st century is said to be an age of life science. The word life science refers to more than just biology: it also includes medicine, pharmacy, agriculture and other fields that deal directly with life science. Now that the study of biological phenomena is advancing at an exponential rate, life science is affecting various academic fields, which include not only engineering fields for applications of life science, but the humanities such as economics, education, literature, sociology, and law as well. In this “age of life science,” the knowledge and information about life science have a great impact on various aspects of everyday life. To some extent, biological knowledge is predicted to become established in society as general knowledge. Thus, there is a need for scientific literacy an accurate understanding of a broad range of scientific knowledge including fields of life science. The idea for collection of terminology associated with the rapidly expanding fields related to or deriving from botany, genetics, tissue culture, immunology, molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology and biotechnology, was stimulated by the difficulty of communicating effectively in discussions at international level. On various occasions, simple differences of interpretation of terminology have threatened to upset negotiations of international importance. However, there are numerous publications addressing the terminology of narrow disciplinary areas, but unable to find a single list that attempted to cover the broad swath of disciplines and applications suitable to its mandate and competence. Therefore this glossary, we tries to provide a consolidated, comprehensive and yet accessible list of terms and acronyms that are used regularly in various disciplines of life sciences. We offer this work in good faith, and in the hope that it will assist those individuals who seek to gain some understanding of the terminology as it is currently used. However, the reader should be aware that the field of life sciences is rapidly expanding and evolving; new terms are entering the nomenclature at a rapid pace. In fact, the meaning(s) of some of the newest terms will undoubtedly be expanded or narrowed as the technology further develops. This glossary is an attempt to present an upto date list of terms currently in use in life science and closely allied fields. It is intended to provide a convenient reference source for researchers, students and technicians. We hope this book would be useful to the students of various disciplines of life sciences for those appearing in competitive examinations such as ARS-NET, UGC-NET, SET and others. Furthermore, we sincerely thank to authors known and unknown for whatever help we have received from their works.