In Vivo

The time is 1946. Against fierce opposition, a young scientist commits himself-and the colleagues who have faith in him-to an enormous gamble. They propose to stake their careers, and the future of the company that employs them, on the search for a new wonder drug. This book takes the reader into the lives of a group of men and women for whom everything-professional integrity, personal happiness, corporate survival-is bound up, hour by hour, with the remorselessly exacting and, to the initiate, awesomely beautiful world of the laboratory. It celebrates a profession that deals each day in hope, suspense, defeat, and-perhaps one time in a thousand-victory. It begins as Tom Cable makes his first impassioned plea to the Enright executives, challenging the company to undertake the search. It continues through scenes of mounting excitement as one antibiotic after another is found, isolated, tested-in vivo, on the living-and fails; as rivalries and impatience turn men against the project and each other; as frustration and defeat are countered with marvels of ingenuity and courage; as the people who test a daring idea in vivo are -in vivo-tested by it. Out of the crowded canvas and the proliferating drama, two magnificent protagonists emerge in sharp relief; one is Cable, the inspired man of science who after every setback must decide whether he is to give up, perhaps only one step short of his goal. The other is Science itself.