Summon up the Blood

Summon up the Blood: In Dogged Pursuit of the Blood Cell Regulators
by Donald Metcalf
Alpha Med Press, Miamisburg, Ohio, 2000; 214 pages.

This book on summoning up the blood is actually a "summing up" of the author's productive career as an immunologist, hematologist, scientist, inventor, discoverer and humanitarian. It sums up 35 years of assembling a team of more than 300 scientists wholly devoted to defining blood cell regulators. In this surprisingly short time, his group was able to identify, discover and clone many blood cell regulators. In addition, his group was largely responsible for the translation of these molecules into the clinical practices which now allow for very intensive chemotherapy in very consolidated periods of time, without the need for bone marrow transplantation. As such, this book represents an important chapter in medicine, chronicling the discoveries of the growth factors that make blood cells grow.

The book, however, is much more. It is also an anthology of reflections and epiphanies of a scientist deeply involved in his science and his humanity. Thus, he describes with alchemist joy and sadness the almost-simultaneous discovery of GCSF from two separate labs, his own and one in Israel. Similarly, he describes the blending of sorrow and humor on the rejection of one of his papers on urinary colony stimulating factors because it was perceived as a topic for a urology, not medicine, journal. Similarly, he juxtaposes his work in designing the experiments with performing them. This side by side work in envisioning and in executing, drop by drop, juxtaposes his simultaneous broad vision with narrow focus, both of which are paradoxically required for discovery. His descriptions of back injuries requiring hospitalizations and surgeries, wrought from endless hours of poring over a microscope, inspire compassion. And his method of "catching" ideas while gardening, exercising, and walking is well articulated. His reflections on the evolution of science and of the waves of simultaneous discoveries following technology breakthroughs are illuminating.

In all, this book is truly a summing up of a great career as well as the story, and the history, of summoning up blood and finding blood cell regulators. In the process, it also becomes the story of a great scientist sharing great wisdom.

Reviewed for Bloodline by:
Dr. Paulette Mehta
Professor, Hematology-Oncology, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Chief, Hematology-Oncology, Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System
Little Rock, Arkansas.

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