Cell of Cells: The Global Race to Capture and Control the Stem Cell

by Cynthia Fox

Overview

Positioned at the cutting edge of science, Cell of Cells charts the international race to utilize the stem cell.

From a lab in the Sahara, where one problem is sand in the petri dishes, to an Israeli lab that narrowly escapes a terrorist bomb, stem cells have gone global. Not only are the cells studied in an escalating number of labs—and lands—but they are already being used. In Japan, a respected doctor uses the cells to make small women better endowed. In Connecticut, stem cell technology has created cloned cows that roam the hills displaying eerily identical personalities. In Texas, stem cells rejuvenate dying hearts. In China, clinics offer stem cells to patients suffering from everything from paralysis to brain trauma.

In elegant, cogent prose, science journalist Cynthia Fox has illuminated the reality and promise of stem cell therapies. Cell of Cells illustrates how the extensive, fervent experimentation currently under way is causing a revolution, both in the body and in the international body politic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393342536
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/17/2007
Pages:	562
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Cynthia Fox is an award-winning writer, focusing on science, whose work has appeared in publications including Wired, Fortune, Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Scientist, Engineering in Medicine and Biology, and Discover. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Editorial Reviews

One of the most striking narratives in the book concerns Woo Suk Hwang, the South Korean researcher who racked up a seemingly impressive series of coups-including a claim to have cloned several new human embryonic stem cell lines-before his career collapsed in 2005 in what Fox dubs "the biggest act of fraud in science history." Charges of fudged results, not to mention paying for eggs from his own female researchers, dealt a crushing setback to South Korea's stem cell efforts. Hwang's story illustrates the high stakes and pressures that mark this ongoing saga. Cell of Cells deftly chronicles the international quest to apply the potentially life-saving power of stem cells.

Scientific American Book Club

(Cell of Cells) makes one think about the immense possibility science holds for society. It tells a great story...Aspiring students of science would benefit from this book, both as stimulation and as an example of the kinds of approaches undertaken in this particular scientific endeavor. The restrictions placed on hES cell research by religious groups will only delay success (assuming that there will be success at the end of this road). Fox's book is an excellent introduction to the field of stem cell research and makes for interesting and entertaining reading.

The Journal of Clinical Investigation

Cynthia Fox is an award-winning science writer whose work has appeared in a variety of high-profile populist publications. Her new book on human embryonic stem (hES) cells is a fascinating and accessible work....The book contains a myriad of fascinating and disturbing tales. The reader cannot but be overwhelmed by the awesomeness of the discoveries which are in the process constantly now of coming to light. This early part of the 21st century is a remarkable time. Many of the components of stem cell research, though, are not so edifying. Fox chronicles frightening examples of greed, unethical conduct and utter indifference to ethical propprieties. Apart from anything else, stem cell reseearch is big business, huge business. Fox has done a fine job in documenting the early and inglorious years of stem cell research. She has rendered an important service in making much that is inaccessible understanding and engaging. The challenge now is for science, medicine and law to cooperate in ways which are meaningful and effective to curb the excesses of avarice and ambition in relation to stem cell developments. Fox's Cell of Cells should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to understand where stem cell research has come from, where it is likely to head and the kinds of dilemmas that it will pose for the human race.

Journal of Law and Medicine

In Cell of Cells, Cynthia Fox brings her impressive talent as a science writer and journalist to telling the story of (the stem cell) race. The hefty book offers a great read for anyone interested in the topic. Fox makes the story an adventure....For nonscientists, she gives pithy but effective explanations without disturbing the flow; for scientists, the book is a smooth read because Fox does not dumb down scientific terminology. The knowledge she acquired in her journeys is astonishing in range and depth, and she cites papers from the primary literature as rungs on the ladder to her overview. (The book includes 43 pages of references and interview notes.)....The author's fascination with "science trouncing science fiction," the potential of stem cells, and our desire to learn what happens next make this a rare can't-put-it-down science book. It reminds me of the fun of first reading The Double Helix. There are fights between and within labs, gossip, and different cultures, but there are also knowledge and exhilarating progress. Cell of Cells is a serious book, spiced up by Fox's wit and storytelling.
—M. Ian Phillips

Science

Ms Fox's book captures the adventures of scientists working towards this medical ambition with a realistic humanity...refreshingly unideological.

The Economist

The portrait that Fox paints of stem-cell science and politics, and of the talented (sometimes flawed) individuals involved, is faithful to reality. She pitches her account squarely in the context of competition between individual scientists, labs and nations, not all of which have been proceeding honourably in the race to revolutionize medicine using stem cells. Few of the mainstream players are missed out. An entire chapter, 'Biopolis', is dedicated to Singapore (where I am based), which punches well above its weight in the stem-cell field. The Biopolis, a conglomeration of glamorous institutes with a world-class infrastructure, is just one of many places where Fox conducted a vast number of interviews, attended conferences and generally did her homework. The author has laboured to be thorough, and tells an interesting story.

Nature

The book is as ambitious and wide-ranging as its subtitle...a living history....Ms. Fox delves deeply into the science, enabling readers to understand the research and its implications in detail.... Parts of the book read like a novel, with rich renderings of settings and fully fleshed-out characters....Cell of Cells is an essential handicapper's guide.

The Dallas Morning News

Peopled with quirky characters and crowded with strange and beautiful places, Cell of Cells reads like the best travel writing, but the author doesn't stint on the science, or the politics, of her subject. Cynthia Fox spent years touring the world's stem cell hotspots, staking out labs from Egypt to Israel to Singapore, and peering over the shoulders of scientists and surgeons. Her exhaustive legwork has produced a highly entertaining book.

The Lancet