The biology of cancer
by Robert A. Weinberg · first published 2006
22mentions
7recommended by
12HN commenters
2013–2026first – last mentioned
58% recommend33% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
Thorough textbook covering cancer biology, from the history of cancer research through virology. It serves as a starting point for newcomers, including those with a high school biology background.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…fields and reading them, rather than trying to understand things by dropping into the state of the art research (which is usually wrong, and hard to understand in detail). Some books I recommend: The Biology of Cancer (Weinberg). After you read this book you'll have a better understanding of why doctors and scientists cringe when people say "cure cancer". Molecular Biology the Cell (Alberts, etc). After you read…
on “Senescent cells stop producing nucleotides: new research” ↗Robert Weinberg's The Biology of Cancer has a great chapter on the early history of cancer research and its connection with virology and a chance occurrence leading to discovery. There was a chicken breeder who noticed that some of his birds…
on “Virus stole poison genes from black widow spider” ↗again, have you read "The Biology of Cancer", by Weinberg? There is strong evidence for what I'm saying.
on “Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]” ↗"almost certainly vanishingly rare event" * "incredibly high rate of reproduction of viruses" = almost certainty. See the first 4 chapters of "Biology of Cancer" by Weinberg.
on “Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]” ↗I strongly suggest reading "The Biology of Cancer" by Weinberg to get a better understanding of why we will likely not understand cancer so completely we can render it a minor disease.
on “How Microsoft computer scientists and researchers are working to 'solve' cancer” ↗…misleading (lots of confounders). See this link for some basic information: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/d... There is a further good writeup on it in the great book "The Biology of Cancer" by Robert A Weinberg, but it is a textbook.
on “Largest-ever study of controversial pesticides finds harm to bees” ↗…Krogh, Mitchison) which is sadly pretty dated now, a general Biology (Campbell), and finally if you really want to dive down the rabbit hole of a complex biological problem with huge health applications, Biology of Cancer (Weinberg). I've had this argument with folks before and some people seem fine learning in other ways, but I really prefer the textbook approach, especially textbooks which are basically just summaries…
on “Improved protein structure prediction using potentials from deep learning” ↗Tell you what, if you're bored and want to learn about this world, I recommend newcomers read Robert Weinberg, The Biology of Cancer, (2nd Edition): https://www.amazon.com/dp/0815342195
on “Why haven't biologists cured cancer?” ↗…to ask. To my understanding, "tumor architecture" is used in the same manner as "tissue architecture", it just refers to the physical structure of the tissue, nothing more specific. I recommend The Biology of Cancer - Robert A. Weinberg. It's on Anna's Archive.
on “New iron nanomaterial wipes out cancer cells without harming healthy tissue” ↗…processes, benign tumors, and runs the lab that a lot of other doctors use the results from to inform a lot of their other decisions. If you really want to learn about this stuff, Robert Weinberg's The Biology of Cancer is where to start. It introduces concepts starting where a high school student could understand and carefully walks through the history of our development of knowledge until, by the end, the pithy chapters…
on “Why is the liver so weirdly regenerative?” ↗Please start with 'The Biology of Cancer' by Weinberg.
on “Ask HN: How do we “cure” cancer?” ↗…loved it, great images and visual explanations. - Anatomy: I'd definitely go for anything by Netter -> https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Human-Anatomy-Netter-Science/dp... - Cancer: Robert A. Weinberg - The biology of cancer - https://www.amazon.com/Biology-Cancer-2nd-Robert-Weinberg/dp... - Plant biochem: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plants - https://www.amazon.com/Biochemistry-Molecular-Biology-Plants... - A very…
on “Ask HN: What, in your opinion, are the greatest and most useful textbooks?” ↗and yet, existence proofs demonstrate you are wrong. Again, re-read the section on virus tumor oncogenes in The Biology of Cancer; pretty much everythign we know about oncogenes came from this physical mechanism.
on “Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]” ↗…point in the past. That fact, which SCOTUS convenient ignored, is sufficient to override the idea that cDNA molecules can be patented. Anyway, your comment about oncogenes again shows you haven't read Biology of Cancer. if you read the first four chapters, it works out the history through which we worked out the understand of oncogenes. And the history is different from what we know now to be the prevalent mechanisms.…
on “Supreme Court: Natural Isolated DNA Not Patentable, Synthetic DNA Is [pdf]” ↗…you read the relevant parts of these books and then ramp up from there with the papers that are actually relevant to your studies/work. With that being said, the Molecular Biology of the Cell and the Biology of Cancer are also very enjoyable (but challenging) reads just for satisfying your curiousity. But don't expect to finish these within a 3 months.
on “Senescent cells stop producing nucleotides: new research” ↗