The Cancer Chronicles: Unlocking Medicine’s Deepest Mystery
By George Johnson
Alfred A. Knopf, August 2013
Author’s Note
Chapter 1. Jurassic Cancer
A strange fossil from Colorado . . . Pathology of dinosaur bones . . . Monster tumors . . . The epidemiology of extinction . . . Cancer in ancient beasts . . . Tumors in sunflowers . . . Fish, reptiles, and amphibians . . . “Why Don’t All Whales Have Cancer?” . . . A curious law of nature . . . Contemplating the odds
Chapter 2. Nancy’s Story
Food pyramidology . . . Pascal’s wager . . . Folates, antioxidants, and Finnish smokers . . . Fruits, vegetables, and giant steaks . . . Carcinogenic estrogen . . . The real risks of cigarettes . . . Emanations from the earth . . . Cancer clusters . . . A worrisome lump . . . Nancy’s cancer
Chapter 3. The Consolations of Anthropology
In the boneyards of Kenya . . . Face to face with Kanam man . . . Palaeo-Oncology . . . Hippocrates and the crabs . . . The wild beast of cancer . . . Metastasis in a Scythian king . . . Skeletons and mummies . . . Visions of an ancient paradise . . . Counting up the dead
Chapter 4. Invasion of the Body Snatchers
“Large and beautifully pellucid cells” . . . Morbid juices . . . Seeds and soil . . . The mysteries of metastasis . . . A horrifying precision . . . The ebb and flow of lymph . . . The surgeon’s diagnosis . . . Weeds from outer space
Chapter 5. Information Sickness
Man-made mutations . . . Funny-looking chromosomes . . . “A new kind of cell” . . . Matter that comes alive . . . The Radium Girls . . . Coal tar and tumors . . . Viral invaders . . . Oncogenes and tumor suppressors . . . Cellular suicide . . . Intimations of immortality . . . A conspiracy of cells
Chapter 6. “How Heart Cells Embrace Their Fate”
Embryos and tumors . . . Snail, slug, and twist . . . Sonic hedgehog . . . the Pokémon gene . . . Cyclopean sheep . . . Holoprosencephaly . . . 1 + 1 = 3 . . . Prayers of an agnostic . . . An endless day at the hospital
Chapter 7. Where Cancer Really Comes From
The surprising aftermath of Love Canal . . . What “environment” really means . . . “The Causes of Cancer” . . . An environmental turncoat . . . The carcinogens in coffee . . . Mitogenesis and mutagenesis . . . Making sense of the cancer statistics . . . A maverick Presidential report
Chapter 8. “Adriamycin and Posole for Christmas Eve”
Cancer cells and magnets . . . The penicillin of cancer . . . A rare kind of malignancy . . . Disheartening statistics . . . “The Median Isn’t the Message” . . . Flying farolitos . . . A visit to MD Anderson . . . Rothko’s brooding chapel
Chapter 9. Deeper into the Cancer Cell
A physics of cancer . . . Epigenetic software . . . The stem cell conundrum . . . An enormous meeting in Orlando . . . Espresso and angiogenesis . . . The news from Oz . . . . Communing with the microbiome . . . Beyond the double helix . . . Dancing at the Cancer Ball
Chapter 10. The Metabolic Mess
Chimney sweeps and nuns . . . A “mysterious sympathy” . . . The case of the missing carcinogens . . . The rise and fall of vegetables . . . A mammoth investigation . . . The insulin-obesity connection . . . “Wounds that do not heal” . . . A hundred pounds of sugar . . . Skewing the energy equation
Chapter 11. Gambling with Radiation
Flunking the radon test . . . A ubiquitous carcinogen . . . Down in the uranium mines . . . Tourism at Chernobyl . . . Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . Exhuming Curie’s grave . . . A pocketful of radium . . . Robot oncologists . . . Relay for Life
Chapter 12. The Immortal Demon
A flight to Boston . . . Stand Up to Cancer . . . A tale of two cousins . . . The return of the hedgehog . . . Where weird drug names come from . . . Waiting for super trastuzumab . . . Orphaned cancers . . . Biological game theory . . . Contagious cancer
Chapter 13. Beware the Echthroi
On Microwave Mountain . . . Cell phones and brain waves . . . Is cancer here “on purpose”? . . . Physicists and oncologists . . . Snapshots of a proteome . . . Five crazy ideas . . . Mitochondria and farandolae . . . Maxwell’s triumphant demon
Epilogue. Joe’s Cancer
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index