This work discusses the history of a genetic mutation, discovered in 1959, that causes chronic myeloid leukemia, and traces the research and breakthroughs that led to the creation of a drug that makes this once-fatal illness now treatable. It focuses on what is widely viewed as the 'poster child' of rational drug development in the cancer research world. The history of the founding of a genetic mutant chromosome in the indication of Chronic myeloid leukemia disease, and the subsequent development of "Gleevec," is the keynote of this publication.
General Note
"This book draws extensively from interviews [the author] conducted with those who lived this story. Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), the blood cancer that is this book's focus, is alternately referred to as chronic myelogenous leukemia."--Author's note.
Content Note
Down to the bone : February 2012 -- The chromosome and the disease : 1959-1990. The first clue ; Three hundred words ; Investigating a chicken virus ; Right number, wrong place ; The surprising source of the chicken cancer gene ; Consummate instigators ; Where the kinase hangs the keys ; A chemical amputation ; Stripping away the fur and the fat ; A funny new protein ; The first sign of a human cancer gene ; Spelling out the translocation ; "That word is oncogenes" -- Rational design : 1983-1998. Becoming a doctor, and then a scientist ; Turning a protein into a drug target ; A machine with a virus for a motor ; Plucking the low-hanging fruit ; A drug in search of a disease; Two endings ; Getting out of Boston ; Killing cells ; Gain and loss ; "Not over my dead body will this compound go into man" -- Human trials : 1998-2001. The quickest answer ; Getting to 200 milligrams ; The one thing they didn't have ; Buzz in the chat rooms ; Saving their own lives ; A response rate of one hundred percent ; Good stressful ; Putting it in writing ; A truckload of data ; The fathers of victory -- A price to pay ; Showing a weakness ; The first five years ; The second generation ; A Gleevec for every cancer -- Survival time.