The book is recognition of the fact that computational biology is only now starting to emerge as an important scientific discipline in its own right. The book addresses 2 audiences whose research intersects. One is those doing other computational work and who perhaps already use these kernel methods, and who are unaware of issues in biology that need to be studied. While the other is those already in computational biology, but who have never used kernel methods. Essentially, the early chapters address these needs.
Then the bulk of the book gives examples where kernel methods are already being used in computational biology. The diversity of the examples should prove inspiring to some readers.
The book also goes somewhat briefly into using support vector machines. If this interests you, try consulting "Support Vector Machines for Pattern Classification" by S Abe, Springer 2005, 1-85233-929-2. It has a fuller treatment of the idea.