Book excerpt: The eighth edition of Textbook of Medical Biochemistry provides a concise, comprehensive overview of biochemistry, with a clinical approach to understand disease processes. Beginning with an introduction to cell biology, the book continues with an analysis of biomolecule chemistry, molecular biology and metabolism, as well as chapters on diet and nutrition, biochemistry of cancer and AIDS, and environmental biochemistry. Each chapter includes numerous images, multiple choice and essay-style questions, as well as highlighted text to help students remember the key points.