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Reviews
Reviews
This is an impressively well-researched book.
This engaging book is written for a wide audience, and I would recommend it highly to investigators and students in the fields of virology and cancer biology. Researchers will enjoy learning the biographical background of the leaders in their field, and science historians will find it a useful adjunct to books and articles that provide more detailed scientific information.
Cancer Virus Hunters is an impressive work of history of medical research, deeply and extensively researched.
A wide-ranging, original, and captivating work.
Cancer Virus Hunters provides a helpful overview for historians, or in fact any reader with an interest in the scientific development of virology, particularly of the cancer-causing kind, or of its intersection with molecular biology in the twentieth century.
The only extensive work of which I know that provides an intellectual history of the field of cancer virology, this book will appeal to scientists and historians of science.
Morgan describes how important the study of cancer-inducing viruses was to the development of molecular biology. It is a reversal of the story often told about how molecular biology opened our understanding of cancer. The book contains many insights into the interplay of basic science and disease-inspired investigations.
This magisterial book should be read by everyone who wants to cure cancer.
Perhaps no biomedical specialty has led to more Nobel Prizes than tumor virus research. Morgan has combed the archives and interviewed dozens of the field's leading figures, providing ample depth to satisfy technical readers while making the science accessible to the non-specialist. A lucid, exhaustively researched account of a vital chapter in the rise of modern science.
Gregory Morgan's book is not only a definitive history of the search for cancer-causing viruses, but also a gripping tale about one of modern science's most consequential quests. Cancer Virus Hunters should be one of those rare cross-over books that appeals to scientists and scholars as well as to lay readers.
Cancer Virus Hunters provides a detailed history of the study of viruses that cause cancer and how this has shaped our modern view of biology and medicine. Interweaving scientific discovery with an exploration of the scientists behind the work, Morgan provides an up-close view of how science is done and how advances in the study of multiple biological systems coalesce to conceptual breakthroughs.
A gripping story about the pioneers who made the most salient discoveries about cancer-causing viruses, their significance for understanding cancer as a whole and the development of anti-cancer vaccines. Highly readable and meticulously researched, it will interest scientists and the curious alike.
The study of tumor viruses prompted many of molecular biology's breakthroughs after the cracking of the genetic code—and led to the first human cancer vaccines. Through vivid biographical sketches of the key virologists and lucid descriptions of their work, Gregory J. Morgan has written a remarkably comprehensive history of the field. A great read and valuable resource for historians and biologists alike.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone who's interested in the history of molecular biology.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
392
ISBN
9781421444017
Illustration Description
53 b&w photos, 1 b&w illus
Table of Contents
Glossary and Abbreviations
Introduction. The Untold Story of How a Century of Tumor Virology Changed Biomedicine
Chapter 1. The Beginnings: Peyton Rous and Chickens, Richard Shope and Rabbits, and John
Glossary and Abbreviations
Introduction. The Untold Story of How a Century of Tumor Virology Changed Biomedicine
Chapter 1. The Beginnings: Peyton Rous and Chickens, Richard Shope and Rabbits, and John J. Bittner and Mice
Chapter 2. True Believers: Ludwik Gross, Sarah Stewart, Bernice Eddy, and Polyomavirus
Chapter 3. The Importance of Measurement: Renato Dulbecco, Marguerite Vogt, and the Rise of Quantitative Animal Virology
Chapter 4. Cell Lines and Cat Leukemia: Michael Stoker, Bill Jarrett, and the Early Fruit of the Glasgow Institute of Virology
Chapter 5. Insights from the Field: Anthony Epstein, Denis Burkitt, Werner and Gertrude Henle, and the First Human Tumor Virus
Chapter 6. Persistence despite Political Challenges: Jan Svoboda and Tumor Virology behind the Iron Curtain
Chapter 7. A Surprising Discovery in the Blood: Baruch Blumberg, Harvey Alter, and Hepatitis B Virus
Chapter 8. A Breakthrough and a New Tool: Howard Temin, David Baltimore, and Reverse Transcriptase
Chapter 9. The Molecular-Genetic Basis of Cancer: Michael Bishop, Harold Varmus, Dominique Stehelin, and Hunting of the Oncogene src
Chapter 10. Mecca for Tumor Virology: James Watson, Joe Sambrook, SV40, and the Growth of Tumor Virology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Chapter 11. Control Mechanisms beyond Viruses: Louise Chow, Phillip Sharp, Richard Roberts, and the Discovery of RNA Splicing in Adenovirus
Chapter 12. A Second Cancer Gene: Edward Scolnick, Robert Weinberg, Geoffrey Cooper, Michael Wigler, and the Oncogene ras
Chapter 13. A Molecular Brake on Cancer: David Lane, Arnold Levine, and the Tumor Suppressor p53
Chapter 14. Unplanned Practical Payoffs: Robert Gallo, Luc Montagnier, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, HTLV, and HIV
Chapter 15. Planned Practical Payoffs: Harald zur Hausen, Jian Zhou, Ian Frazer, Douglas Lowy, John Schiller, HPV, and the Cervical Cancer Vaccine
Conclusion. Patterns in a Century of Research
Acknowledgments
Interviews and Archival Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Featured Contributor
Gregory J. Morgan
Gregory J. Morgan (HOBOKEN, NJ) is an associate professor specializing in the history and philosophy of science at Stevens Institute of Technology. He is the editor of Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein.Resources
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