Intuition

doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7557.50

BMJ 2006;333:50 (1 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7557.50

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Intuition

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This is a novel about research institutes, the precariousnessof their funding, and the vulnerability and vanity of the humancharacters that inhabit them. It also claims to be about thenature of scientific discovery.

Allegra Goodman

TheDial Press, $25, pp 344 ISBN 0 385 33612 8 Also available asan ebook, $17.95 www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/dialpress.html

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A gawky, brilliant, and highly strung postdoctoral researcher,Cliff, has spent seven years working obsessively on the taskassigned him by his professors on his first day in post—tofind a cure for cancer by injecting variants of a virus intonude mice—with spectacularly negative results. One day,while making routine measurements, he notices that the tumoursare regressing in half his sample. Within a month they havemelted away.

Cliff's contemporary at the lab and erstwhile girlfriend, Robin,already miffed that his attention has shifted from her to thecontents of the . . . [Full text of this article]

Trisha Greenhalgh, professor of primary health care

University College London p.greenhalgh@pcps.ucl.ac.uk