Customer Reviews

Introduction to the Cellular and Molecular Biology of Cancer

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I'm a mathematics Ph.D. student who's working in computational oncology, meaning that I study cancer from a mathematical/engineering point of view (conservation of mass, oxygen and glucose transport, etc.) and create computer models for study. This biophysical viewpoint has been fruitful, but I've found that to make further progress, an understanding of the cellular biology is required. Furthermore, a lack of vocabulary makes it difficult to communicate with the clinical/medical community.

That's where this book comes in: it gives a great, expansive overview of cancer that is difficult to come by in the mathematical world. In places, it is perhaps too detail-oriented (which specific proteins do what and how, e.g., in DNA repair), but that's the nature of the beast, and I feel that it's very important for mathematical biologists to be exposed to this. The text gives a good sampling ranging from epidemiology, genetics and epigenetics (gene expression), oncogenes, tumor suppresor genes, DNA repair, cell cycle, and most approaches to therapy.

Because this edition was published in late 2005, it's quite up-to-date, and in that regard, the papers cited are very useful to the student and researcher for further exploration and paper writing. Probably one of the greater weaknesses is in the figures in the earlier genetics sections: the diagrams are not particularly helpful in actually illustrating the complex processes. Overall, though, this has been very helpful for me in bridging the gap between mathematical biology and oncology. I'd highly recommend this text for anybody who desires to learn more about the biology of the cancer, regardless of where they're coming from.