64 Book Reviews~Biochemical Education 27 (1999) 60-66

who have worked for several years in the field may wish to read this book to keep fully abreast of the latest technology.

N Jenkins

PII: S0307-4412(98)00242-8

The Ethics of Science - - An Introduction

by David B Rcsnik. pp 221. Routledge, London and New York. 1998. £14.99 ISBN 0-415-16698-5

The author is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for the Advancement of Ethics at the University of Wyoming. The book is described as a comprehen- sive and student-friendly introduction to the study of ethics in science and scientific research. The book covers: Science and Ethics, Ethical Theory and Applications, Science as a Profes- sion, Standards of Ethical Conduct in Science, Objectivity in Research and Ethical Issues in the Laboratory, The Scientist in Society, Toward a More Ethical Science. The author covers each subject without expressing his personal views until the final chapter. As well as an extensive bibliography, there are fifty case studies which could bc uscd as the basis of tutorial discussions.

1 found this to be an excellent book, well illustrated with mention of famous cases such as 'The Baltimore Affair'. Although most of us claim that there are few cases of clear cut intention to defraud in out sciences, this book draws attention

"to many instances where such activities as 'economy with the truth' are involved. I am convinced that all research workers should be introduced to ethical matters, but I am not convinced that the answcr is a series of lectures: rather I would encourage thc academic staff and graduate students to read this book and perhaps arrange a short series of tutorials based on the case studies. While the text is written from an American viewpoint, I found that it had a pretty widespread application.

Peter Campbell

PII: S0307-4412(98)00147-2

Connective Tissue Biology: Integration and Reductionism

Edited by R K Reed and K Rubin. pp 299. Portland Press, London. 1998. £75. ISBN 1-85578-118-2

This volume is No 71 in the Wenner-Gren International Series and represents the proceedings from a Wenner-Gren Symposium held in Stockholm in June 1996. It contains a collection of short and not necessarily connected papers. The idea behind the Symposium was to integrate (see title) scientists from various aspects of connective tissue biology - engineers, physiologists, cell biologists, biochemists and molecular biolo- gists. On this basis it would seem to have been successful, although the molecular biologists may have problems in dealing with the mathematical equations provided by the engineers and physiologists. There are 46 authors and 21 chapters. Probably few people will be able to read and under-

stand the whole of this book, but they should try for there is a lot of important material here, not only about connective tissue, but also clinical practice and cell biological research.

The introductory chapter by Laurent on the history of matrix biology which has become so transformed in the last twenty to thirty years was especially good. He writes '...we have now changed our view of the matrix from that of an amorphous ground substance to that of a highly organised supra-molecular structure'.

The range of topics covered in the chapters is very wide, but always the integrative idea is that the extracellular matrix is involved in some way. There are chapters on genetic analysis, hyaluronan (hyaluronic acid), water and solute transport in the ECM, transgenic mice as models for cartilage and eye disease, degenerative joint disease, heart development, the role of PDGF in connective tissue, capillary permeability, the endothelial barrier, and microcirculation and transport pheno- mena in tumours.

Overall, this volume lives up to the high reputation of this series, although the books are not cheap. We look forward to the publication of another volume The Chemistly, Biology and Medical Applications of Hyaluronan and its Derivatives this year.

L R Coates

PII: S0307-4412(98)00148-4

Advances in Oncobiology, Volume 1

Edited by G Heppner and E E Bittar. pp 356. JAI Press, Greenwich, Connecticut and London. 1996.

ISBN 0-7523-01460-5

This volume is more of an introductory text to oncobiology than a typical Advances compilation. The Editors say that it is aimed at clinical and non-clinical oncologists, graduate students and medical students. In fact, some chapters are fairly clinical, but many chapters would be useful for graduate students and would also be of interest to medical students (perhaps later in their course) trying to get to grips with the nomenclature of oncology and with some recent advances.

Pathology of Neoplasia (Chapter 1) explains much of what you need to know to understand the jargon of oncology. It contains a number of useful Tables that lecturers may want to 'borrow' in preparing a lecture course, and surprisingly in a book of this type, the Reference list only runs to one page of carefully chosen key references. Chapter 2 deals very adequately with Cancer induced by ionising radiation, and is vcry sensibly written. It deals with epidemiology too. Appropriately it leads on to Chapter 3 on Environmental causes of cancer. Chapter 4 is on Progestin regulation ~f celhdar proliferation seems to have a rather different flavour - of treatment and clinical aspects, but it does provide a reasonably good background to the cell cycle. The next chapters (5-10) deal with more basic aspects and their relation to cancer, namely tumour angiogenesis, gap junctions, cell adhesion, the protein ras, cytokines and, continuing this theme, immunity to cancer.

In contrast, Chapter 11 is rather different, being applied, clinical and pathological. It deals with the quantitative analysis