Immunotherapy seeks to get the immune system to stir up a molecular ``commotion in the blood'' to battle disease. This sweeping yet remarkably detailed report focuses on the efforts to use immunotherapy in the fight against cancer. Science journalist Hall (Mapping the Next Millennium, 1991, etc.) opens with an account of William Coley, a 19th-century American physician whose pioneering use of a crude cancer vaccine can now be seen as the beginning of cancer immunotherapy in this country. As Hall points out, neither Coley nor his critics had ``the foggiest notion of the cells, the molecules, and the order of interaction involved in the immune response,'' an ignorance that today is finally lifting. The scene next shifts to 1950s London and the discovery of the much-ballyhooed interferon, which in turn led to the discovery of a host of other factors involved in immunological responses. Among these are interleukin-2, discovered in 1976 in one of Robert Gallo's laboratories and made famous by Steven Rosenberg in his work at the National Cancer Institute, and interleukin-12, the current favorite. Along the way, Hall details the development of T-cell-specific antibodies, the tumor necrotizing factor, and monoclonal antibodies. He seems to have interviewed just about every major immunology researcher, and he makes vivid their political maneuverings in the race for scientific primacy. The journey of a new therapeutic tool from laboratory to clinic is a hazardous one, and Hall makes it both understandable and exciting. He also shows us the hype that surrrounds each new ``magic bullet'' and the inevitable letdown when each one fails to live up to its hype. In the end, Hall leaves the reader optimistic that the ``commotion in the blood'' is not random noise but a ``beautifully scored piece of music'' that future researchers will be able to read. As gripping as a spy thriller. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8050-3796-9
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
