Natural Obsessions: The Search for the Oncogene

Describes the search for the genes that control cancer, explains the difficulties of research in molecular biology, and assesses progress towards a more detailed understanding of cancer

Two rival teams of eminent biologists studying oncogenesthe coils of DNA that control cancer growth in cellsare the focus of this overlong, detailed report by a New York University Graduate School instructor. One group, at the MIT-affiliated Whitehead Institute, is led by molecular biologist Robert Weinberg, portrayed here as the father figure of a bickering but close-knit tribe of underpaid graduate students and "postdocs." Michael Wigler, a flamboyant, eccentric prodigy, heads the other team at the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory in New York. The significance of cancer-fighting discoveries tends to get lost here amid soul-searching, petty rivalries and tentative experiments. Scientific research, we learn, is an enterprise beset by ridiculous mistakes and false results. A fondness for solving puzzles seems to motivate these scientists more than a desire to help suffering humanity. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In recent years, molecular biology has developed so rapidly and become so complex, it is difficult even for a scientist to follow the latest manipulations of genetic material and related discoveries, such as the role of oncogenes (mutant genes, apparently triggering the development of cancer). Journalist Angier spent several months at two laboratories that are in the forefront of this research, observing the work of graduate students, postdoctorate fellows, and technicians, all under the command of senior scientists. Her involvement with their lives, work, triumphs, and failures overshadows her attempts to colloquialize and clarify the scientific results of the research, so the reader eventually abandons the science being done for Angier's vivid and absorbing portrayal of the people doing it. Recommended for this reason, rather than for its exposition of the oncogene search. Eleanor Maass, Maass Assocs., New Milford, Pa.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.