Rating: 
Summary: A Modern Odyssey of Medical Innovation
Review: This book clearly deserves many more than five stars. Dr. Folkman's War contains many valuable insights including how to: Raise children to be outstanding people; be an astute observer about nature to unlock new lessons; pioneer in a new field of science; and be persistent about something important. When the history of medicine in the twentieth century is written, Dr. Judah Folkman will be considered one of the most important figures. This book is the most accessible and complete source of information about his remarkable life and accomplishments. Dr. Folkman's research to date "has found applications in twenty-six diseases as varied as cancer, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, psoriasis, arthritis, and endometriosis." "Ordinarily, researchers working in any of these fields do not communicate with each other." Angiogenesis looks at the way that capillaries are formed in response to the body's biochemistry to help and harm health. Tumors depend on this action to get the blood supply they need to grow. Wounds also rely on a similar mechanism to grow scar tissue. I have been following Dr. Folkman's career for over twenty-five years, and heard him speak about angiogenesis just a little over two years ago. Because I felt I was well-informed, I almost skipped this book. That would have been a major mistake on my part. Dr. Folkman's War contained much new and interesting information that helped me to better understand the lessons of Dr. Folkman's life, as well as the future implications of angiogenesis. Unknown to me, Dr. Folkman had also played a role as an innovator in implantable pacemakers, time-released drug implants, and specialized types of heart surgery before he began his serious assault on angiogenesis. The discoveries had their beginning in 1961 when he was a draftee in a Navy lab in Bethesda, Maryland. He noticed that tumors could not grow unless they first recruited their own capillaries to bring an increased blood supply. "Over time, he convinced himself that there had to be some way to block the growth of those blood vessels." He was right, but it took a long time before he knew any of the answers. In brief opening comments about the book, former surgeon general C. Everett Koop, M.D. and Sc.D. observed how this new science evolved. "In the 1970s, laboratory scientists didn't believe any of it." " . . . [T]he critics' objections were hushed for good in 1989." "In the 1990s, the criticisms came chiefly from the clinical side, and the pharmaceutical companies didn't want anything to do with angiogenesis." The story is a very heart-warming one. Dr. Folkman's father was a rabbi who asked each member of the family each night what she or he had learned that day. He also constantly implored his son to "Be a credit to your people." His father clearly thought that Dr. Folkman would also become a rabbi. Having announced his attention to become a physician, his father told him, "You can be a rabbi-like doctor." This injunction was one he took to heart, often seeking out his father's counsel on how to console the families of his patients. His first taste of how close mortality is to all of us was when his first two children inherited cystic fibrosis. The younger of the two died, and the older one needed lots of special care to deal with infections. This probably made him a better doctor, by helping him see things more from the patients' points of view. Space constraints keep me from discussing the book's description of how angiogenesis developed, but if you like stories about trail-blazing research, you will be amply rewarded. The key hurdles are described, along with the blind alleys that were followed. Anyone reading this will see how important it is to add new skills to the study of any new subject. I was particularly interested in the way that press reports tended to harm the progress of angiogenesis, either by annoying other scientists, attracting hucksters, or delaying key deals with potential partners. We often think about freedom of speech being helpful, but here the case is a mixed one. My only disappointment with the book is that it does not provide as much clinical data about the drugs under testing now as has been made public. That material would have made for fascinating reading. There are also natural substances that can cause a tumor to shrink, and clinical studies have been very successful in growing and shrinking tumors for some time. I suspect that some member of your family will live a longer, healthier life due to future treatments soon to be available using angiogenesis. This book is a great way to learn more about the subject now, so you can encourage exploration of these experimental therapies where possibly appropriate. If anyone in your family now has cancer, this book is must reading for you! Dr. Folkman summarized the book nicely as follows: "Success can often arrive dressed as failure." "If your idea succeeds everybody says you're persistent. If it doesn't succceed, you're stubborn." May we all live longer and healthier lives due to the emerging medical treatments using angiogenesis . . . that were helped by Dr. Folkman's persistence!
Rating:
Summary: A great book about a great man!
Review: This is a story of brilliance and persistence. Dr. Folkman pursued a different approach to cancer in spite of resistence and hostility from the cancer research establishment. And we should all be thankful as his work is now coming to fruition with human clinical trials. Inspiring account of one man's life's work that is be leading to a great leap forward in cancer treatment! **I must comment on the negative reviews by "Dr. Fitzgerald" and "George McCartle" below, which I found rather bizarre. (1) Dr. Koop didn't write this book as these empty reviews seem to imply -- suggests that someone is commenting on a book they didn't read, (2) Both of these "reviewers" also trashed a Starbucks book in the same simplespeak suggesting it's the same person probably interested in reducing the overall rating, and (3) It's hard to know what motivates this person but perhaps it has to do with investing interests -- this stuff smacks of stock message board tripe. It's unfortunate, but also gives the prospective reader of this book a small insight into the varied kinds of resistence Folkman's ideas encounter.
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Summary: The Man Who May Cure Cancer
Review: This is the extraordinary story of an extraordinary man. Dr. Judah Folkman's approach to fighting cancer, long the subject of derision from the medical and research establishment, is finally bearing fruit. Robert Cooke writes beautifully and clearly, combining a scientific biography of Dr. Folkman with an introduction to anti-angiogenesis. Read this book- when Judah Folkman wins the Nobel Prize, you'll know all about him. (A sidebar- a Amazon customer reviewer, who pans the book, is under the impression that it is written by Dr. C. Everett Koop. It is not. He does however, write the introduction, which ends with these words, "In the end, of course, Judah Folkman's beautiful idea has triumphed over the doubters. A few still persist, but their time will come.")
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Summary: Persistence & vision overcomes dogma an ignorance.
Review: Through long, arduous practice, Buddhists believe it is possible to remove the lens of self-interest and dogma to perceive "absolute reality," with "automatic compassion." After reading Robert Cooke's biography one believes that Dr. Judah Folkman has never looked at medicine any other way. But the emperors of the scientific establishment have never dealt kindly with the boys who can't see their robes, as Cooke points out with several examples. (The Hungarian doctor who demonstrated that deaths from childbirth fever could be eliminated if doctors washed their hands was hounded by his colleages to suicide.) Dr. Folkman's heresy was the observation that tumors can't grow without stimulating healthy tissues to supply new blood vessels. Fortunately for all of us, Dr. Folkman's vision has been matched by his persistence in pursuing it. In following Dr. Folkman's path from his boyhood in Ohio as the son of a rabbi, to Harvard where he gained his self-confidence, to the Navy research lab where his angiogenesis hypothesis first formed, and back to Boston as a pediatric surgeon-scientist, Cooke makes what might have been a difficult and technical story into an epic adventure. In keeping with the fashion that writing a biography in chronological order is boring and passe, Cooke instead follows parallel thematic threads in Dr. Folkman's storied career. I personally found the resulting forward and backward jumps in time distracting, but not insurmountable. It would have been enough if this were merely a story of scientific progress and the triumph of a new idea over entrenched dogma, but it is also the story of a man whose vision is matched by his devotion to his patients. It should be required reading for all prospective medical students. Now angiogenesis-based therapies for cancer, atherosclerosis, blindness and arthritis are on the verge of exploding on the scene and Dr. Folkman's lab at Children's Hospital Boston is ground-zero. He and the generation of doctors and researchers that he has helped to train are revolutionizing huge swaths of medicine. When it happens it will seem like it was overnight, but those of us who have read Robert Cooke's book will know it was a lifetime in the making.
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Summary: Father of academic capitalism
Review: Why Medtronic must build Folkman Institute for Angiogenic Research in Boston? Who is a real father of academic capitalism? How great bioscientist selects and trains great pupils? What is a real persistence in science? How decision of naval officer to search for acelluar substitute for blood determined the emergence of new exciting scientific field? Who will be the next possible Nobel Prize Winner? How we will treat cancer ? If one wants to know answers on these questions one must read this wonderfully written book. My advice: buy and read. It is a very good investment.
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