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.

"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.

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.