Biochemistry of Cancer [antikvár]

PREFACE Cancer is one of the most complex of medical and biological problems, and research intő its causes, development and control forms one of the most intricate scientific activities of modern times. Cancer research is a focus of many independent scientific disciplines, biological, chemical and physical, and is most fruitful when ideas, concepts and techniques in these disciplines are freely exchanged. No single individual is capable of mastering the entire field of cancer research, and no single individual in any one of its component disciplines can work effectively at the modern levelVithout comprehension and appreciation of those disciplines on its boundaries. The present volume is concerned with the application to the study of cancer of one of these disciplines, namely biochemistry, and a brief presentation is made of those biochemical studies which have yielded results of interest and significance. To this end, the attempt has been made to select fundamental data of this field of cancer research, and, on the basis of these data, to assess that which the biochemical approach to the cancer problem has thus far achieved and to illustrate the possibilities of the reciprocal enrichment of the fields of normál and of abnormal physiology. No attempt at inclusiveness is made. Instead, the intention is to stress the development and the rationale of the biochemical approaches to the cancer problem and to indicate the extent to which the value of these approaches is due to advances made in contiguous fields of research. The study of the phenomena of cancer draws sustenance from many sources and is facilitated from various directions. The material has been divided for presentation into three generál categories relating, respectivelv, to the induction of tumors, to attempts to influence the induction and the growth of tumors, and to a description of the chemical properties of tumors. Many of the topics described in the following pages are not strictly biochemical in nature, but have been included because such matters as inbred strains of mice and pathologic criteria of tumors are part of the equipment with which the biochemist works in this field. In few subjects of biochemical interest is the investigator compelled to depend upon so many disciplines foreign to his own. Above all it is the author's hope that the relatíve sparseness of the results presented will reveal and emphasize the enormous gaps in our knowledge which only devoted and painstaking labor can fill. The author is grateful to his colleagues for their kindness in reading parts or all of the manuscript, namely, Drs. Chalkley, Andervont, Shear, J. White, Shimkm, Bryan, Eschenbrenner, Hartwell, Dunn, Algire, Heston, Blum, Burk and Earle. The responsibility for any errors, whether retained or overlooked, is, of course, the author's own. A considerable debt of gratitude is felt toward these colleagues, not merely in the present instance, but for the opportunity over many years of learning from them. The author alsó wishes to thank his chief, Dr. R. R. Spencer, for his encouragement in this enterprise, and his wife, Lucy L. Greenstein, for her help in compiling the indexes.