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The Philadelphia Chromosome A Mutant Gene and the Quest to Cure Cancer at the Genetic Level
Jessica Wapner
The Experiment, first edition, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61519-067-6 |
Any cell and molecular biologist will be familiar with the story of the Philadelphia chromosome. Briefly, it is the story of how a chromosomal rearrangement was linked to a particular type of cancer (chronic myeloid leukemia, or CML), and the discovery of how the rearrangement causes a very specific molecular change that ultimately leads to uncontrolled cell division. Remarkably, these scientific discoveries culminated in the creation of a drug that stopped CML in its tracks, essentially curing this cancer (or to be more precise, indefinitely keeping it under control). Over the span of the last four decades of the 20th century we are introduced to the cast of characters that cracked the code of CML, and are whisked through the key observations and experiments that revealed the molecular mechanisms behind this cancer. However, and this is the main weakness of this book, the technical scientific content is not very detailed and in many cases there are large omissions, making this story somewhat insipid to the seasoned molecular biologist. Nevertheless, there is a list of references at the end that includes the original papers that published each major finding along the way, so if needed, any student, researcher or science history buff can learn the details. But in the end I do feel this is a story worth reading, especially for UCLA students as the university played a major scientific and clinical role in deciphering and treating CML. Intrigued? Dive right in...
