Benjamin Cummings Publishing, a subsidiary of Pearson Education, has announced the publication of a new textbook authored by Dr. Rodney Boyer, the Drs. Edward and Elizabeth Hofma Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Hope College.

The new book, "Biochemistry Laboratory: Modern Theory and Techniques," is designed for use in undergraduate biochemistry teaching and research laboratories. The book focuses on detailed descriptions of modern techniques in experimental biochemistry and discusses the theory behind important techniques. The extensive range of techniques includes computer Internet biochemical databases, chromatography, electrophoresis, spectroscopy, measurements of ligand-binding interactions, and recombinant DNA procedures such as molecular cloning and polymerase chain reaction. It is expected that students will use the book as a supplement and guide to their laboratory procedures.

The book has a dedicated Web site, with information for biochemistry instructors on how to design and teach a biochemistry/molecular biology lab. The highlight of the Web site is a listing of over 250 experimental projects in all areas of biochemistry and appropriate for use at the undergraduate level. The list of experiments on the Web site will be updated on a periodic basis.

Boyer served on the faculty at Hope College, where he taught, researched, and wrote biochemistry, for 26 years.

He earned his B.A. in chemistry and mathematics at Westmar College (Iowa) and

his Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at Colorado State University. After three years as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow with M. J. Coon in the Department of Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan Medical School, he joined the chemistry faculty at Hope.

While at the college, he directed the work of more than 75 undergraduate students in research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Dreyfus Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Petroleum Research Fund (ACS). With his students, he published numerous papers in the areas of iron storage in the protein ferritin and biochemical education. He also served as chair of the department of chemistry for six years. He spent a sabbatical year as an American Cancer Society Scholar in the lab of Nobel laureate Tom Cech at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Boyer is also the author of the lab manual, "Modern Experimental Biochemistry" (third edition, 2000, Benjamin Cummings), and the textbook for one-semester biochemistry, "Concepts in Biochemistry" (third edition, 2006, John Wiley & Sons) and serves as an associate editor for the journal "Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education." He is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and its Education and Professional Development Committee that recently designed the model undergraduate biochemistry degree recommended by the ASBMB.

Boyer retired from teaching and research at Hope in 2000 and resides in Bozeman, Montana, where he continues to write and consult in biochemical education.