Molecular Biology of Cancer: Mechanisms, Targets, and Therapeutics by Lauren Pecorino

"The textbook is clearly written and the author does a great job of introducing some of the more fundamental concepts. It is organized well and the topics flow smoothly and logically. The book also nicely pulls in current therapeutic approaches with the molecular lesions that are responsible for the generation of cancer."--Deborah Vestal, University of Toledo

Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
I'm one of those people who like to know how things work - especially if those things are inside my body and are likely to shorten my life span. Since my doctors don't tell me anything, I need other sources, and since the Internet is unreliable, I need a guidebook I can trust. Molecular Biology of Cancer turned out to be just the right book for me. It is also an excellent first book for anyone interested in the molecular biology of cancer. First, as to technical level: This is very much what one expects in an undergraduate science text, with lots of section headings, lots of diagrams, and lots of boxes highlighting important points. If, like me, you're a non-student and non-scientist but interested in the subject, you'll probably find it very readable. You'll need to have some experience of reading diagrams in which symbols (squares, circles, etc.) represent molecules interacting with each other. And you'll have to be comfortable reading books with plenty of technical language. The terms specific to cancer biology should be no problem since they are well-explained and the terms that are in the glossary are printed in red in the text. You won't need to know anything about the chemistry involved in the molecular interactions (nothing about hydrogen bonding or redox, for example). Some single-celled organisms can simply grow and divide as fast and as long as their food supply allows. Those that live in colonies must have chemical signals to regulate each cell's growth and activity. Mammals, being enormously more complex, need much more sophisticated communication between cells. That means, of course, that there are many things that can go wrong and many mechanisms to fix things that go wrong. And therefore, there are many things to be considered when diagnosing and treating cancer. Pecorino chooses particular examples to explain general principles. First, a cell normally doesn't divide until a signal from outside sets off a chain of events that leads to division. An error in this chain, caused by an abnormal protein, can cause the cell to divide without the external signal. Pecorino chooses epidermal growth factor (EGF) to show the working of such a chain. When a cell does start to divide out of control, there are mechanisms which try to stop the reproduction, or to kill the cell. Pecorino focuses mostly on one molecule, called P53, which is involved in a number of such mechanisms and is abnormal in a majority of tumors, including mine. Most cells are fastened in place, so it takes a further abnormality for them to break loose. Since most cancers are caused by abnormal or inappropriately expressed genes, DNA repair and regulation are important. Here, Pecorino mentions the BRCA genes, which turn up often in articles about breast cancer. These are major topics, but there is much more than I can mention in an Amazon-size review. So many genetic flaws don't show up all at once; a cancer is the product of evolution within one body. This is implicit in Molecular Biology of Cancer, but it is more developed in another book, Darwin in the Genome. (See my review for more info; click above on "".) Given that there are so many molecular systems involved in cancer, one can see why there are many points at which drugs may inhibit or kill cancer cells. Pecorino points out a number of these. She even flags many these with red target icons, symbolizing potential drug targets. Perhaps by the time a student gets to be a researcher, most of these will be passé - a lot of people are working hard on them -- but her aim is to teach them how to spot potential target molecules and interactions and I think she succeeds. Cancer can be of interest to people who aren't affected by it because, by showing what happens when things go wrong, it gives new Insight into how these systems work in general. For those interested in developmental biology, it shows what happens inside a cell in response to a signal whereas most of the books I've read just mention the cellular interactions. Pecorino also gives examples of how a large variety of molecules may be created by mixing and matching a much smaller collection of simpler molecules or domains; this modularity is important in evolution. So this book will be of interest to a variety of readers for a variety of reasons. Pecorino is particularly interested in students and hopes that some will be inspired by this book to take up cancer research. I second that and I hope that some will find metastatic prostate cancer to be a worthy field.