Dr. Folkman's War; Angiogenesis and the Struggle to Defeat Cancer
Bill Greene (Jacket Photo) New York: Random House, 2001. First Edition [stated]. Hardcover. xiv, [3], 366, [2] pages. Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Inscribed by the author, Robert Cooke, on the front free endpaper. Inscription reads: Tom, I Hope you find this is a good read. There's much more to come. Robert Coke, 5/2001; Also inscribed by Judah Folkman, May 2001. Inscription reads To Tom, I appreciate your request about my papers. Judah Folkman, May 2001. Sticker inside back cover indicates this once belonged to Tom Horrocks. Includes Foreword by C. Everett Koop, M.D. Also includes Acknowledgments and Index. Moses Judah Folkman (February 24, 1933 – January 14, 2008) was an American medical scientist best known for his research on tumor angiogenesis, the process by which a tumor attracts blood vessels to nourish itself and sustain its existence. He founded the field of angiogenesis research, which has led to the discovery of a number of therapies based on inhibiting or stimulating neovascularization. In 2004, the first angiogenesis inhibitor, bevacizumab (Avastin), was approved by the FDA, as a treatment for colon cancer. For his discoveries which originated the concept and developed the field of angiogenesis research, Folkman was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 1992. He was awarded the Massry Prize from the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California in 1997. This book brilliantly describes how high the odds are against success in medical research, how vicious the competition for grants, how entrenched the skepticism about any genuinely original thinking, how polluted by politics and commerce the process of getting medicine into patients' hands. But it also depicts with rare power how exalted a calling medicine can be and how for the rare few--the brilliant, the tireless, and the lucky--the results of success can be world changing. Judah Folkman's answer--stop cancers by cutting off their blood supplies--has much too long been thought of as too simple to ever work. Now, however, a broad set of antiangiogenic agents based on Judah's ideas are coming in line. The verdict 'cancer' need no longer be synonymous with fear and despair. Our country's "war against cancer'' at last has found its general. In 1961, twenty-eight-year-old Dr. Judah Folkman saw something while doing medical research in a United States navy lab that gave him the first glimmering of a wild, inspired hunch. What if cancerous tumors, in order to expand, needed to trigger the growth of new blood vessels to feed themselves? And if that was true, what if a way could be found to stop that growth? Could cancers be starved to death? Dr. Folkman had ample reason to be self confident second in his class at Harvard Medical School, he was already considered one of the most promising doctors of his generation. But even he never guessed that his idea would eventually grow into a multibillion-dollar industry that is now racing through human trials with drugs that show unparalleled promise of being able to control cancer, as well as other deadly diseases. For the creation of this book, Dr. Judah Folkman cooperated fully and exclusively with acclaimed science writer Robert Cooke. He granted Cooke unlimited interviews, showed him diaries and personal papers, and threw open the doors of his lab. The result is an astonishingly rich and candid chronicle of one of the most significant medical discoveries of our time and of the man whose vision and persistence almost single-handedly has made it possible. Dr. Folkman's radical new way of thinking about cancer was once considered preposterous. So little was known about how cancer spreads and how blood vessels grow that he wasn't even taken seriously enough to be considered a heretic. Other doctors shook their heads at the waste of a great mind, and ambitious young medical researchers were told that accepting a position in Folkman's lab would be the death of their careers. Now, though, the overwhelming majority of experts believes that the day will soon come when antiangiogenesis therapy supplants the current more toxic and less-effective treatments chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery-as the preferred method of treatment for cancer in patients around the world, and Dr. Folkman's breakthrough will come to be taken for granted the way we now take for granted the polio vaccine and antibiotics. Dr. Folkman's War brilliantly describes how high the odds are against success in medical research, how vicious the competition for grants, how entrenched the skepticism about any genuinely original thinking, how polluted by politics and commerce the process of getting medicine into patients' hands. But it also depicts with rare power how exalted a calling medicine can be and how for the rare few, the brilliant, the tireless, and the lucky, the results of success can be world-changing. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Cancer, Chemotherapy, Cancer Research, Judah Folkman, Neovascularization inhibibors, Angiogenesis, Biotechnology, Blood Vessels, Circulatory System, Clinical Trials, Harvard Medical School, Tom Horrocks, Bruce Zetter, Everett Koop
ISBN: 0375502440
[Book #81842]
Price: $250.00