Mark Sanders, PhD 
Lecturer Emeritus 
College of Biological Sciences 
University of California, Davis 

Dr. Mark Sanders became the Editorial Review Group Chair for Genetics for Doody’s Review Service in 2020. To date, Dr. Sanders has reviewed nearly 50 titles in the specialty. 

Mark Sanders received his PhD from UCLA (Biological Anthropology) in 1981 and took a post-doctoral position at UC Berkeley researching the genetics of breast cancer in the laboratory of Mary-Claire King. While at Berkeley, he taught courses in human genetics and caught the teaching bug, taking a position on the teaching faculty in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of California, Davis in 1985. At UC Davis, Mark specialized in teaching genetics. Across a 30-year career at UC Davis, Mark taught more than 130 courses to over 35,000 students. His courses were primarily a large third-year introductory genetics course and genetics laboratory courses but also included courses in molecular biology and evolutionary genetics, along with introductory biology. Along with teaching, Mark served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs in his College office, and he ran three different undergraduate educational programs over the years. He also spent a good deal of time reviewing numerous genetics textbooks as they were under development. He retired from teaching in 2015 and is now Lecturer Emeritus. He continues to write actively on his own textbook and for Doody’s. 

Based on his experience and innovation teaching introductory genetics, Mark and his co-author John Bowman (Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) embarked on authorship of their own genetics textbook titled Genetic Analysis: An Integrated Approach. First published in 2012, the book has been through three subsequent revisions and is due for publication in its newest edition in 2026. 

The opportunity to spread the word about the valuable content of the genetics and molecular biology books that cross his desk is the primary motivator for Mark’s work for Doody’s. Excellent biological science research, and excellent books on the subject, are international. Keeping those responsible for book purchases up to date on what’s available and why it’s important is a continuation of Mark’s career-long teaching mission. 

Based on his decades of teaching and textbook review experience, Mark likes to start each Doody’s review with a sentence that sets the relevance of the book in a scientific or historical context. And, as a science history buff and someone deeply interested in the history and current state of knowledge in genetics and molecular biology, his most recent favorite reviewed books are the science history book The Origin and Development of Genetic Therapies: From Magic and Superstition to Molecular Genetics and the Human Genome, Friedmann (Oxford University Press, 2025) and the textbook Gene Control, 3^rd Edition, Latchman and Cheriyath (CRC Press, 2025).