Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension (Hardcover)

by Stephen S. Hall (Author) "THE CANISTERS STOOD in the corner of the garage, amid garbage cans and gardening tools, right next to Hayflick's champagne-colored Lexus..." (more)
Key Phrases: White House, Mike West, Michael West (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Drawing on scores of original interviews and contemporary source material, Hall, a contributing writer and editor at the New York Times Magazine (Invisible Frontiers: The Race to Synthesize a Human Gene), gives a timely and engrossing account of the high-stakes science of life extension. The author kicks off with the ‚minence grise of the field, Leonard Hayflick, and his human cell line called WI-38, which opened the gates for biotech research and showed that our cells may have built-in limitations on longevity. His WI-38 strain, taken from aborted fetus cells used to develop a polio vaccine, also became an ethical flash point that, as the author shows, has steered the course of biomedical research in aging, cancer, stem cells and cloning. Here, too, are the repeated rise and fall of entrepreneur Michael West, the idiosyncratic "lapsed creationist, born-again Darwinist," who merges his spiritual belief in immortality with big money science. Hall aims to show how the Clinton administration's decision not to support therapeutic cloning and regenerative medicine represented government held hostage by "heavy-handed, ideological fundamentalism, enforced by anonymous thuggery." The book wraps with President George W. Bush's decision in 2001 to allow stem-cell research to proceed, but only using already existing cell lines. Among Hall's conclusions: distrust of science is the subtext of the debate over embryonic stem cells and research cloning, and regenerative medicine is inevitably yoked to health-care limitations in access, affordability, timeliness and, Hall writes, "simply, good medicine." He says the notion of "victory over mortality" is a canard, but we may be able to slow the aging process. This is top-drawer journalism.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A timely and engrossing account of the high-stakes science of life extension....This is top-drawer journalism." Publishers Weekly, Starred

"A carefully documented examination of how society deals with life-and-death matters." Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"An important survey of the entire landscape of the science aimed at extending human life....we all owe [Hall] a vote of thanks." --JoAnn C. Gutin Newsday

"A fascinating, accurate and accessible account of some of [the] contemporary efforts to combat aging." --Robert H. Binstock The New York Times

"[C]ompelling . . . Merchants of Immortality is a highly readable and important book." --Shannon Brownlee The Washington Post

See all Editorial Reviews

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Product Details Hardcover: 448 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (June 18, 2003) Language: English ISBN-10: 0618095241 ISBN-13: 978-0618095247 Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #946,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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First Sentence:
THE CANISTERS STOOD in the corner of the garage, amid garbage cans and gardening tools, right next to Hayflick's champagne-colored Lexus. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
White House, Mike West, Michael West, United States, Leonard Hayflick, Carol Greider, University of Wisconsin, National Academy, San Francisco, Tommy Thompson, New York Times, Advanced Cell Technology, Roger Pedersen, Jeff Martin, University of California, Johns Hopkins, Rockefeller University, Jamie Thomson, Washington Post, Bill Clinton, Doug Melton, Leon Kass, Harold Varmus, Jose Cibelli, Douglas Melton

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 60 books:

• Toward a More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs by Leon R. Kass on 6 pages
• How and Why We Age by Leonard Hayflick Ph.D. on page 147, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
• The Birth of Bioethics by Albert R. Jonsen on page 101, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
• All too Human by George Stephanopoulos in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
• Invisible Frontiers: Race to Synthesize a Human Gene by Stephen S. Hall in Front Matter, and Back Matter

See all 60 books this book cites

 

9 books cite this book:

• Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed by Pete Shanks on 4 pages
• Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat by Fran Hawthorne in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
• Nanofuture: What's Next For Nanotechnology by J. Storrs Hall in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
• American Bioethics: Crossing Human Rights and Health Law Boundaries by George J. Annas in Back Matter
• Hereafter : Searching for Immortality by Richard Schweid in Back Matter

See all 9 books citing this book

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5 Reviews 5 star:  (4) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 20 of 22 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Meet the masters of biohope and biohype, September 1, 2003 By  Royce E. Buehler "figvine" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)       (**** 1/2) Stephen Hall has chosen a title that represents his book very well. What he sets forth, in supple, thoughtful, smoothly readable prose, is the saga of recent advances in "life extension" - both longevity research and research into the healing and regeneration of tissues with the aid of stem cells. As his title suggests, the emphasis is on the scientists involved, and on the public face of that science. Along the way, he clarifies a good deal of the science itself: the discovery of the Hayflick limit, the finite limit to the number of times a normal cell can divide; the connection of that limit to the telomeres, the shoelace-tips on the ends of chromosomes; the chimerical enzyme telomerase, two parts protein and one part RNA, which repairs the telomeres and helps make cancer cells immortal; the sir-1 gene and its congeners which can double or sextuple your lifespan, if you happen to be a roundworm. And so on. Little of this will be news to those laymen who follow the science pages closely, but even for us it's good to have the timeline neatly laid out. The bulk of Hall's attention, though, goes to the rivalries between laboratories to be first to publish and patent each of these breakthroughs; to the lineages of the biotech startups bankrolling the races; to the contrast between the solid if limited gains made by the biologists and the fairy dust sprinkled on investors; and to the enormous ferment surrounding all these new technologies as they began to impinge on embryonic stem cells and thereapeutic cloning. Wandering through the scene from chapter to chapter, popping up repeatedly whenever the action gets hot, is the energetic true believer Michael West, the ousted founder of the premiere telomere outfit Geron, and the leading light of Advanced Cell Technology, which set the country on its ear two years ago with a premature announcement that it had cloned a human embryo. In his infectious zeal for abolishing the tyranny of old age, West serves not only as a central figure in the unfolding commercial and political saga, but as a stand-in for the insistent voice in all of us, whispering that all men may be mortal, but hey, maybe *you* can beat the rap. Hall's conclusion, offered with a full appreciation of the fact that "It's hard to predict things, especially the future," is that a dramatic cure for aging is not likely to be in the cards. Just as cancer turned out to be a whole class of diseases with a host of different causes, so aging is turning out to be more complex than the discipline's pioneers imagined. What we can reasonably expect is a steady advancement of the average life span over the coming century, by another decade or two. How long we have to wait for breakthroughs in tissue regeneration in particular will likely depend less on science than on politics. Two intriguing lines of lifespan research, the one tracking the sir family of genes, and the one investigating the effects of free radicals, are not ignored but, perhaps because they haven't caught the public fancy sharply, get relatively short shrift. Less than halfway through the book, the spotlight shifts from the study of aging to the study of stem cells. Because the U.S. for the last quarter century has enjoyed an effective moratorium on experimentation with aborted fetuses or discarded IVC embryos, American scientists' attention has focused more and more on the other theoretical way of obtaining human embryos: inserting the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated human egg. If anyone were to succeed in doing that, and coaxing the result to divide until it reached the blastocyst stage - that would be "therapeutic cloning." So far, no one's done it, or at any rate no one who's done it has felt like advertising it. In a political squaring of the circle, President Bush managed to permit NIH to fund limited therapeutic cloning in a way that ended up outlawing funding in practical terms. As a result, scientists in the field face the classic NRA nightmare: when federal stem cells are outlawed, only maverick venture capitalists will have stem cells. At press time, no one knows what's really happening, what kind of ethical oversight private companies are bothering to put in place, or how restricted access to resulting medical breakthroughs will be when it's all proprietary, with no NIH ownership at all. For the moment, the U.S. is stuck with the worst of the "pro-life" and the "mad scientist" worlds, while the rest of the world does its research in the sunlight and steals a technical march on us. All the players on both sides of that circle-squaring, and the principal shakers, movers and move-blockers in the relevant research, are profiled here, some in full screen 3-d and some in fetching thumbnails. The field is unlikely to be surveyed by a more complete or more even handed chronicler for some while. 24 of 29 people found the following review helpful: 2.0 out of 5 stars Big on Merchants, Little on Immortality, August 7, 2003 By  "srobnet" (Kennett Square, PA United States) - See all my reviews If you're looking for a book describing what it's like to be a research scientist in the academic world, or if you're looking for a detailed history of stem cell politics, this book is for you. However, if you're looking for cutting-edge science, exciting discoveries, and an up-to-date look at the modern day "quest for the fountain of youth" - look elsewhere. You may eventually find some of it, but not without wading through pages of tedious "personal struggles". This book fits far more easily into the "Biography" genre than the "Popular Science" category. 3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating survey, May 30, 2005 By  Robert J. Sawyer "Science Fiction writer" (Mississauga, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    Hall is a fabulous writer, given to wonderful turns of phrase. He's also a meticulous researcher -- the "Notes" section of the book is gigantic, citing sources for even the most off-hand of remarks. This is really two books in one It begins discussing Leonard Hayflick and the discovery of programmed cell death, and the resulting search for the telomerase enzyme, then it takes a pretty sharp right turn into being a book about stem-cell research. Although some of the players are the same, they're really two different stories. Hall's conclusion is that no rolling back of the clock is likely, and that "immortality," or even profound life extension, is probably not in the cards. But it's a fascinating journey nonetheless, and well worth reading.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Merchants of Immorality Review Scientists, politicians, business people, and reporters are the protagonists and supporting characters in Stephen S. Read more Published 17 days ago by Julie Lakehomer 5.0 out of 5 stars Revolution in Progress So, when will stem cells come into widespread medical use? If you answer twenty years from now, you'd be wrong by about 60 years--they first became widely used in the 1960's... Read more Published on December 3, 2004 by Donald B. Siano Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (June 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618095241
• ISBN-13: 978-0618095247
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #946,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meet the masters of biohope and biohype, September 1, 2003

By	Royce E. Buehler "figvine" (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(**** 1/2)

Stephen Hall has chosen a title that represents his book very well. What he sets forth, in supple, thoughtful, smoothly readable prose, is the saga of recent advances in "life extension" - both longevity research and research into the healing and regeneration of tissues with the aid of stem cells. As his title suggests, the emphasis is on the scientists involved, and on the public face of that science.

Along the way, he clarifies a good deal of the science itself: the discovery of the Hayflick limit, the finite limit to the number of times a normal cell can divide; the connection of that limit to the telomeres, the shoelace-tips on the ends of chromosomes; the chimerical enzyme telomerase, two parts protein and one part RNA, which repairs the telomeres and helps make cancer cells immortal; the sir-1 gene and its congeners which can double or sextuple your lifespan, if you happen to be a roundworm. And so on. Little of this will be news to those laymen who follow the science pages closely, but even for us it's good to have the timeline neatly laid out.

The bulk of Hall's attention, though, goes to the rivalries between laboratories to be first to publish and patent each of these breakthroughs; to the lineages of the biotech startups bankrolling the races; to the contrast between the solid if limited gains made by the biologists and the fairy dust sprinkled on investors; and to the enormous ferment surrounding all these new technologies as they began to impinge on embryonic stem cells and thereapeutic cloning.

Wandering through the scene from chapter to chapter, popping up repeatedly whenever the action gets hot, is the energetic true believer Michael West, the ousted founder of the premiere telomere outfit Geron, and the leading light of Advanced Cell Technology, which set the country on its ear two years ago with a premature announcement that it had cloned a human embryo. In his infectious zeal for abolishing the tyranny of old age, West serves not only as a central figure in the unfolding commercial and political saga, but as a stand-in for the insistent voice in all of us, whispering that all men may be mortal, but hey, maybe *you* can beat the rap.

Hall's conclusion, offered with a full appreciation of the fact that "It's hard to predict things, especially the future," is that a dramatic cure for aging is not likely to be in the cards. Just as cancer turned out to be a whole class of diseases with a host of different causes, so aging is turning out to be more complex than the discipline's pioneers imagined. What we can reasonably expect is a steady advancement of the average life span over the coming century, by another decade or two. How long we have to wait for breakthroughs in tissue regeneration in particular will likely depend less on science than on politics.

Two intriguing lines of lifespan research, the one tracking the sir family of genes, and the one investigating the effects of free radicals, are not ignored but, perhaps because they haven't caught the public fancy sharply, get relatively short shrift. Less than halfway through the book, the spotlight shifts from the study of aging to the study of stem cells. Because the U.S. for the last quarter century has enjoyed an effective moratorium on experimentation with aborted fetuses or discarded IVC embryos, American scientists' attention has focused more and more on the other theoretical way of obtaining human embryos: inserting the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated human egg.

If anyone were to succeed in doing that, and coaxing the result to divide until it reached the blastocyst stage - that would be "therapeutic cloning." So far, no one's done it, or at any rate no one who's done it has felt like advertising it. In a political squaring of the circle, President Bush managed to permit NIH to fund limited therapeutic cloning in a way that ended up outlawing funding in practical terms. As a result, scientists in the field face the classic NRA nightmare: when federal stem cells are outlawed, only maverick venture capitalists will have stem cells. At press time, no one knows what's really happening, what kind of ethical oversight private companies are bothering to put in place, or how restricted access to resulting medical breakthroughs will be when it's all proprietary, with no NIH ownership at all. For the moment, the U.S. is stuck with the worst of the "pro-life" and the "mad scientist" worlds, while the rest of the world does its research in the sunlight and steals a technical march on us.

All the players on both sides of that circle-squaring, and the principal shakers, movers and move-blockers in the relevant research, are profiled here, some in full screen 3-d and some in fetching thumbnails. The field is unlikely to be surveyed by a more complete or more even handed chronicler for some while.

24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Big on Merchants, Little on Immortality, August 7, 2003

By	"srobnet" (Kennett Square, PA United States) - See all my reviews

If you're looking for a book describing what it's like to be a research scientist in the academic world, or if you're looking for a detailed history of stem cell politics, this book is for you.

However, if you're looking for cutting-edge science, exciting discoveries, and an up-to-date look at the modern day "quest for the fountain of youth" - look elsewhere. You may eventually find some of it, but not without wading through pages of tedious "personal struggles".

This book fits far more easily into the "Biography" genre than the "Popular Science" category.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating survey, May 30, 2005

By	Robert J. Sawyer "Science Fiction writer" (Mississauga, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hall is a fabulous writer, given to wonderful turns of phrase. He's also a meticulous researcher -- the "Notes" section of the book is gigantic, citing sources for even the most off-hand of remarks.

This is really two books in one It begins discussing Leonard Hayflick and the discovery of programmed cell death, and the resulting search for the telomerase enzyme, then it takes a pretty sharp right turn into being a book about stem-cell research. Although some of the players are the same, they're really two different stories.

Hall's conclusion is that no rolling back of the clock is likely, and that "immortality," or even profound life extension, is probably not in the cards. But it's a fascinating journey nonetheless, and well worth reading.