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Biochemistry & Biomedical Sciences

Please choose from the tabs below to get started on your research.

Reference

Dictionaries, Directories, Handbooks, Encyclopedias, etc. - Reference works are useful when you need to obtain quick facts, define the terms and scope of your search, or get a broad overview of a topic. Best Bets! are marked with aBest Bet!.
Products available to registered McMaster Students/Staff/Faculty Only are marked with a McMaster Use Only.

Below are examples of reference works in this subject area. To see if there's a reference work for your topic, try searching the catalogue for "subject area AND encyclopedia" (without the quotes, and adding your own subject area, e.g. enzymes).

Dictionary of microbiology and molecular biology / Paul Singleton, Diana Sainsbury
Health Reference - QW 13 .S678 2001

Encyclopedia of biological chemistry / editors, William J. Lennarz, M. Daniel Lane (4 Vols.)
Health Reference - QU 13 .E56 2004
Thode Reference - QD 415 .A25E53 2004

Encyclopedic Reference of Genomics and Proteomics in Molecular Medicine [electronic resource] / Detlev Ganten et al. (2006)

Encyclopedia of Molecular Mechanisms of Disease [electronic resource] / edited by Florian Lang (2009)

Nucleic acids from A to Z : a concise encyclopedia / edited by Sabine Müller
Thode Reference - QP 620 .N797 2008

Oxford dictionary of biochemistry and molecular biology
Thode Reference - QP 512 .O94 2006

Color atlas of biochemistry / Jan Koolman, Klaus-Heinrich Roehm
Thode Reference - QP 514.2 .K6613 2005

 

Books

Use McMaster's Library Catalogue to find books on your topic. Click the Help link for searching tips & strategies.

SpringerLink Biomedical and Life Sciences e-books ('search within these results' to further narrow down content)

PubMed Bookshelf
Contains 700 electronic texts in the life-sciences and healthcare subjects.

Articles/Databases

Use article databases to find out which journals, magazines, and newspapers have published articles on your topic. Most useful when recent information is required, or when the topic is too specific to be covered in a book. Best Bets! are marked with aBest Bet!.
Products available to registered McMaster Students/Staff/Faculty Only are marked with a McMaster Use Only.

PubMed / Ovid Medline 

 

 

(1950s to present)
both PubMed and Ovid Medline connect you to 20 million citations in the biomedical literature, life sciences journals and e-books. PubMed is the freely available access point, Ovid offers a more robust search interface.

Embase
Biomedical and pharmaceutical database that includes over 3500 international journals. 

 

 

 

Science Citation Index Expanded
 (Web of Science) (1976 to present);
covers all sciences and indexes journal literature and conference proceedings (no patents or book chapters are indexed); unique feature is the ability to search for citations of publications by an author.

 

 

 

BIOSIS
The print version, Biological Abstracts, is available in the library back to 1924; the electronic version back to 1995