Between Bench and Bedside: Science, Healing, and Interleukin-2 in a Cancer Ward

In 1985 the media announced a new therapy for cancer. It was expensive, labour-intensive and toxic – but, they said, it worked. How it worked is the story Ilana Lowy tells in Between Bench and Bedside, an account of the clinical trials of interleukin-2 at a major French cancer hospital. Her book offers an insider’s view of the culture of clinical experimentation in oncology – and of how this culture affects the development of new treatments for cancer.