Summon up the Blood:
In dogged pursuit of the blood cell regulators^©

Professor Donald Metcalf, Walther & Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, Australia

AlphaMed Press, Dayton, Ohio, USA; 214 pp. Copyright 2000; released May 2000.

ISBN: 1-88085-427-9 (hard bound); ISBN: 1-88085-428-7 (soft bound)

For over 35 years Professor Donald Metcalf has been “in dogged pursuit of the blood cell regulators.”  And now, with his masterful style, he treats us to the unvarnished “behind the scenes” story as he and his research team discovered, characterized, purified and then brought these hopeful new blood cell regulators to clinical trials.  This history of the “colony stimulating factors” is Don’s autobiography.  It is also the story of a research team’s 35-year saga of “attempting to establish order out of chaos and the vagaries of fate that attend such an enterprise.”

The late Professor Laszlo G. Lajtha wrote:

“Don Metcalf was (and is) not the man to delegate important things to others; he had to do all the critical experiments himself. A superb technician and highly disciplined investigator with a brain not only fertile but also scholarly–he has created a whole new field of research, not only as a trailblazer but also as a school maker.  He and his pupils and disciples began the elucidation and identification of the various factors which regulate the proliferation and also, in many cases, the differentiation of hemopoietic cells…That the work was not only of fundamental importance but also promised to be a powerful clinical tool had already been proven [by Metcalf].”

Don Metcalf has been gifted with that special blend of enthusiasm for exciting ideas and the perseverance to convert them into life-lengthening hope for patients with catastrophic diseases such as cancer.  His book, Summon up the Blood, makes gripping reading for the countless professionals and patients who have been his beneficiaries.  It records medical history that is still in the making … much of that history owes a great debt of gratitude to Don Metcalf.

E. Donnall Thomas, M.D.
Professor of Medicine
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
writes:

In Summon up the Blood, Don Metcalf gives a personal account of the long and tedious path leading to our present knowledge of growth factors and cytokines. It began witha visit to his laboratory by Ray Bradley who brought a set of petri dishes containing semisolid agar cultures of mouse bone marrow with surprising small colonies. The colonies were made up of clusters of hematopoietic cells. This event was another example in science of a "picture is worth a thousand words." As one who took Puck's course in Colorado and attempted liquid marrow cultures in the 1950's, I can understand why it changed Don's life, and initiated studies that were to bring fame to Don for the betterment of all of us. Don describes with sadness the friction that arose with the Israeli Group of Sachs et al. who made apparently simultaneous observations of marrow colonies. Click here to read more!

Brian I. Lord, Ph.D.
Paterson Institute for Cancer Research
writes:

"Summon up the Blood" tells the story of the most outstanding achievement of experimental hematology research, and it's translation from fundamental biology to widespread clinical application, of the last century. Click here to read more!

Yataro Yoshida, M.D.
Department of Hematology
Takeda General Hospital
writes:

It is no exaggeration to say that Professor Donald Metcalf is the top scientist in the field of research on cellular hematopoiesis and its regulators. Since 1960s, he has always been at the very front in these fields. The word "colony-stimulating factor (CSF)" originated from his culture experiments some decades ago. Were it not for his outstanding contributions, the current cytokine era might not have yet emerged or at least not in its flourishing state. In this respect alone, he deserves to be called "the founder of cellular hematopoiesis and hematopoietic cytokines". Click here to read more!

Russell L. Basser, M.D.
Department of Haematology & Medical Oncology
Royal Melbourne Hospital
writes:

Donald Metcalf is widely acknowledged as the father of hematopoietic growth factors and is the recipient of numerous national and international awards in recognition of his work. This book provides Professor Metcalf’s personal account of how this work came into being and how it evolved, not really from the scientific perspective, but rather more from the perspective of the players and the politics. The events are chronicled from the first time Ray Bradley approached Don Metcalf with culture dishes of hematopoietic cell colonies through the immense efforts to isolate factors responsible for the growth of these colonies that ultimately led to the clinical development and commercialization of such factors. Along the way, many errors of judgement and perspective were committed, which are so easy to see in hindsight, but were really part of the trial and error process required at the cutting edge of new discovery. Professor Metcalf gives a very personal but open narrative and is not afraid to discuss the mistakes his group has made, as well as the great discoveries. This is a light and easy to read book that would be of interest to any researcher, but particularly those basic and clinical scientists who have had any involvement in the development of growth factors or the understanding of hematopoiesis and hematological diseases.

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