cover image Cell Wars

Cell Wars

Marshall Goldberg. Hill & Wang, $18.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-374-12010-8

The 1984 discovery by a Nobel Prize-winning cancer research team of Philadelphia's Wistar Institute of monoclonal antibodies permits identification of all parts of a cell too tiny to be seen even by an electron microscope. Goldberg, chief of endocrinology of Flint, Mich.'s Hurley Medical Center and also a novelist ( Nerve , etc.) here provides helpful background on the nature of the immune system and that of cancer-cell formation, along with a review of recent research and modes of treatment. The use of monoclonal antibodies as a diagnostic tool is invaluable and, in the case of cancer, helps to identify malignant cells. In addition, experimental cancer therapy by these antibodies used singly or in combination with other agents, is being conducted in several medical centers in an effort to reinforce the immune systems of patient volunteers, one of whose treatment of a pancreatic cancer employing Wistar Institute techniques the author recounts in moving detail. Although the patient did not survive, Goldberg stresses the scientific contribution and human benefits derived from the experiment. (September)