| View Larger Image | The Story of Taxol: Nature and Politics in the Pursuit of an Anti-Cancer Drug | Paperbackby Jordan Goodman (Author), Vivien Walsh (Author)
| List Price: | $36.99 | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Cambridge University Press | | Page Count: | 282 Pages | | Publication Date: | November 23, 2006 | | Sales Rank: | 1,933,932st |
|
EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Taxol is arguably the most celebrated, talked about, and controversial natural product in recent years. Celebrated because of its efficacy as an anticancer drug and because its discovery has provided powerful support for policies concerned with biodiversity. Talked about because in the early 1990s the American public was bombarded with news reports about the molecule and its host, the slow-growing Pacific yew tree. Controversial because the drug and the yew tree became embroiled in several sensitive political issues with broad public policy implications. Taxol has revolutionized the treatment options for patients with advanced forms of breast and ovarian cancers and some types of leukemia; it shows promise for treating AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma. It is the best-selling anticancer drug ever, with world sales of $1.2 billion in 1998 and expected to grow. Goodman and Walsh's careful study of how taxol was discovered, researched, and brought to market documents the complexities and conflicting interests in the ongoing process to find effective treatments. From a broader perspective, The Story of Taxol uses the discovery and development of taxol as a paradigm to address current issues in the history and sociology of science and medicine. Jordan Goodman is a Senior Lecturer in History at the Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology. He has written on subjects as varied as the history of medicine and economic history for journal articles and in edited volumes. Goodman's previous books include Tobacco in History (Routledge, 1994) and Consuming Habits: Drugs in History and Anthropology (Routledge, 1995). Vivien Walsh is Reader in Technology Management at the Manchester School of Management, University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology. She has been researching the pharmaceutical and chemical industry for years and is currently working on globalization of innovative activity in the face of technological and organizational changes in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and agro-food industries. Walsh has been a consultant to the European Commission and to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. |
Amazon.com Review
Environmentalists have long urged that threatened habitats--the old-growth forests of Appalachia, for instance, or the Amazonian rainforest--be preserved on the off chance that the plants within them may contain natural cures for a host of ailments. Such proved to be true of the Pacific yew, a tree found in higher elevations here and there throughout the Pacific Northwest. In its bark resides a chemical compound that has proved effective in battling certain kinds of cancers and leukemia. When the discovery of the compound was made in the early 1960s, write English researchers Jordan Goodman and Vivien Walsh, pharmaceutical companies raced to corner the market in Taxus brevifolia bark, formerly considered a kind of natural rubbish, while at the same time working to synthesize the compound artificially. For their part, environmentalists, arguing that yew forests sheltered endangered populations of plants and animals, including the Pacific Northwest spotted owl, fought to protect the tree from development. In the middle stood federal and state forestry agencies, which had to wrestle with the doctrine of multiple use of public resources. By the early 1990s, according to the authors, the yew had become "an important symbol for the fate of the American temperate rainforest in particular and the planet's ecosystem in general," caught in the utilitarian debate over human benefit and the needs of the environment. The debate died down only when the chief pharmaceutical company involved announced that it would develop Taxol through a semi-synthetic process using raw materials from a more abundant species of yew. An illuminating case study in ecopolitics, Goodman and Walsh's book is useful reading for anyone with an interest in habitat preservation and science policy. --Gregory McNamee |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.0 based on 1 review)
|
long on history, short on biology by Urs Peter Roos (Dietikon, Zurich, Switzerland)  3 Stars
May 18, 2002
...I bought this book because some years back I did basic research with this remarkable substance and wanted to learn more about its background.The Story of Taxol is a very scholarly book, with footnotes almost as long as chapters, and extensive literature references. As the subtitle makes clear, the tale is mostly about politics, viz. politics within the National Cancer Institute and other agencies involved in the procurement of this initially natural chemotherapeutic agent. In minute details we are also informed about collections of bark of the pacific yew, the principal raw material for taxol prior to its total synthesis, as well as about the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of collection quotas. Because taxol's mode of action at the cellular and molecular level is completely different from that of other inhibitors of cell division it accounted for much activity in cell biology. The book is silent about this aspect. Whereas It may be a valuable addition to some libraries, overall it clearly offers too little of interest to the individual reader...
| |
SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Napoleon's Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History
by Penny Le Couteur (Author), Jay Burreson (Author)
Napoleon's Buttons is the fascinating account of seventeen groups of molecules that have greatly influenced the course of history. These molecules provided the impetus for early exploration, and made possible the voyages of discovery that ensued. The molecules resulted in grand feats of engineering and spurred advances in medicine and law; they determined what we now eat, drink, and wear. A change as small as the position of an atom can lead to enormous alterations in the properties of a...
| 
| Molecules That Changed the World
by K. C. Nicolaou (Author), Tamsyn Montagnon (Author)
In this delightfully designed book, K. C. Nicolaou introduces the world's most important molecules and shows in a fascinating way the role certain compounds have to play in our everyday lives in the fields of drugs, aromatics or vitamins. For example, he tells the story of Aspirin, beginning 3,500 years ago in Egypt, through to its first synthesis and various applications with many entertaining facts and details. Printed in full color throughout and with its oversize format, this is a must for...
| 
| The Everyday Writer
by Andrea A. Lunsford (Author)
Always attentive to the realities of the classroom — including emerging technologies — The Everyday Writer remains a truly practical and accessible tabbed reference handbook. Informed by Andrea Lunsford’s research and written in clear, straightforward language that students can understand, the third edition gives quick and simple advice for reading images and writing texts — every day.
|
|
|
