Reviews for Los Angeles on $500 a Day: They Said It Couldn't Be Done

The average rating for Los Angeles on $500 a Day: They Said It Couldn't Be Done based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-09 00:00:00 Mildred Adkins Interesting from a historical perspective, as an inside look at the world of high science, and in seeing the trend of how things pass from one generation to another. The most interesting point was the Matthew Effect in science. I'd never heard of that before!

Review # 2 was written on 2012-02-15 00:00:00 Rhonna Duntenschachter Kanigel traces the early history of neuropharmacology through a single lineage of mentorships and examines the role of apprenticeship in science and how research "genes" get passed on from generation to generation. He does this through one line beginning with James Shannon, who ends up forming the NIH into what it is today, and traces the line through to Candace Pert, four generations down the line. The story begins in the early 1940's, as James Shannon is put in charge of the malaria division of Goldwater Hospital in New York to work on the pharmacology of atabrine, because it was basically a drug that didn't work, but was sorely needed for the Pacific theater of World War II . Part of the problem was that doctors were pretty much guessing at how much drug to give, and the science of pharmacology at the time depended on a sort of guess and check system using the behavioral results from patients. Shannon's great skill seemed to be in gathering and inspiring the right people for the job. One of those he recruits is Bernard "Steve" Brodie, who completely changes pharmacology. Brodie develops techniques for tracking the fate of drugs in the bodies in a more quantitative way, and how to use this new measurement practically for studying drugs and manipulating them. To give you an idea of the impact of Brodie on science, Wikipedia says, "his most significant discovery was that animal and human responses to drugs do not differ significantly." Brodie was known for inspiring and risky work, and for being a little overbearing and controlling as a lab leader. He takes on Julius Axelrod, who is, at the time, a technician. Axelrod thrives in Brodie's lab. He does so much so, that he essentially discovers the microsomal enzyme system by himself by designing his own experiments. Brodie realized the broad implications of the system, which is that the liver has an array of enzymes that are generalized to "declaw" toxins, and publishes a paper with himself as first author and Axelrod as second author, which exasperates Axelrod, who believes he deserved more credit. He eventually splits and starts his own laboratory. In his own lab, Axelrod works out the release and reuptake of catecholamines (for which he wins the Nobel Prize much to Brodie's chagrin), and also contributes to the understanding of the pineal gland and sleep-wake cycles. He hires Solomon Snyder, the next in the line that the book covers, who starts working on identifying receptors for the major neurotransmitters in the brain. Particularly important (both politically at the time and medically) was identifying the opiate receptor which was assigned as a PhD project to Candace Pert. She isolated the receptor, and Snyder shared the Lasker award with two others who had been working on the opiate receptor for a while, which infuriates Pert, and she goes public with her exclusion (which may have prevented Snyder from receiving the Nobel prize). Through this story, a beautiful history of the science is presented with a good amount of detail about the often simple but elegant experiments designed to make some of the essential discoveries in neuropharmacology in the 20th century. Despite many conflicts between mentors and mentees, the story comes across as mostly fairly presented, excepting some sexist undertones in the treatment of Candace Pert. I personally felt that there was a little too much emphasis on the "scientific style" that gets passed from mentors to mentees as an explanation for scientific success. It certainly makes for a better narrative, but it seems more likely to me that scientific funding and opportunity is what drives more of that success, along with the fact that famous scientists get to pick better trainees. The way the story is presented is thought-provoking and offers a lot of mental cud to mull over. How does the "rich get richer" effect in science affect scientific progress, and is it good or bad? Should we invest public funds into curing specific diseases or into basic scientific discoveries? How do you go about assigning credit for scientific discoveries? What are the best ways to address the natural tensions between mentors and mentees? I would recommend this book generally, but I think that other scientists would find it particularly interesting.