Rebel Cell

Kat Arney's Rebel Cell is a spirited survey of cancer that argues the disease is the cost of owning such intricate bodies. Many people assume cancer is a modern illness brought on by contemporary living, but Arney shows it has shadowed life for as long as there has been life. Evidence of tumours appears in pets, farm animals and wild creatures, and even Hydra, a tiny freshwater animal that is little more than a water-filled tube, can develop it.

Arney explains why cancer is so hard to escape. It begins when cells break free of the controls that normally govern them and multiply without restraint, and the same genetic machinery responsible for this is required for living at all. Cancer, in her telling, is a flaw built into the way life works, not an accident that could be easily avoided.

The book traces the long history of this cellular uprising, from the earliest life on Earth to the present. It describes how doctors and researchers began to make real headway only in the twentieth century, and how more recent decades have seen the fight turn in patients' favour as scientists learn how the rebellion operates from within.

Written by a geneticist and science writer, Rebel Cell suits general readers curious about biology and medicine who want to understand what cancer is and why treating it has been so difficult.