Book: The Philadelphia Chromosome

A fascinating scientific detective story, of how the Abl gene, a tyrosine kinase on the Gag gene, became implicated in CML chronic myeloid leukemia.  The idea that more cancers might someday be targeted genetically -- instead of the barbaric "kill 'em all and hope the cancer dies with them" approach of present-day chemotherapy and radiation therapy -- is one of the most exciting developments of my lifetime.

After a lot of fits and starts I finally finished this.

Excellent, excellent book. You learn a lot about cancer and genetic cancer drugs. You learn a lot about the rigors of bringing an experimental drug to market.

The book is somewhat outdated -- though written in 2013 and published in 2014, in the past five years genetic cancer drugs have become a lot less miraculous as it has been realized that cancers are mutating all the time. A drug that works at first may not work after the cancer begins to mutate. There is no such thing as a singular cancer. Each one is a whole host of mutations.

But fascinating reading, and uplifting that this one drug had such an effect on so many CML patients. It was almost like reading Oliver Sacks' book "Awakenings," about the early promise of L-Dopa.