Charles Graeber

A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder

The Good Nurse

Bestselling author of The Good Nurse, Charles Graeber details the discovery of cancer's secret weakness, and how a new generation of scientists finally cracked the code on how the human immune system can fight -- and beat -- the disease. One hundred years ago, physicians marveled at what appeared to be patients with bacterial infections spontaneously being cured of deadly tumors. What was a miraculous mystery then is now hard scientific fact: immunotherapy is the cutting edge of cancer treatment, and a crucial breakthrough in the race to find the ultimate cure. In THE BREAKTHROUGH, journalist Charles Graeber expertly traces the fascinating history of immuno-oncology and guides readers through the revolutionary scientific research bringing immunotherapy into the 21st century. As advances in the fields of cancer research and the human immune system continue to fuel a therapeutic arms race among biotech and pharmaceutical research centers around the world, the next step -- harnessing the wealth of new information into modern and more effective patient therapies -- is already well underway. THE BREAKTHROUGH is the first book to address the game-changing science of cancer treatment through immunotherapy. It is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of oncological science, and a brave new chapter in our relationship with cancer.

Immunotherapy and the Race to Cure Cancer

The Breakthrough

An intimate -- and frightening -- glimpse inside the mind of America's most prolific serial killer, Charles Cullen, whose 16-year long "nursing" career left as many as 400 dead. After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, The Good Nurse weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal. Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost. In the tradition of In Cold Blood,The Good Nurse does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.

For decades, scientists have puzzled over one of medicine's most confounding mysteries: Why doesn't our immune system recognize and fight cancer the way it does other diseases, like the common cold? As it turns out, the answer to that question can be traced to a series of tricks that cancer has developed to turn off normal immune responses-tricks that scientists have only recently discovered and learned to defeat. The result is what many are calling cancer's "penicillin moment," a revolutionary discovery in our understanding of cancer and how to beat it. Journalist Charles Graeber expertly traces the fascinating history of immuno-oncology and guides readers through the revolutionary scientific research bringing cancer treatment into the 21st century. As advances in our understanding of cancer and the human immune system continue to fuel a therapeutic arms race among biotech and pharmaceutical companies around the world, the next step - harnessing the wealth of new information into modern and more effective patient therapies - is already well underway. Groundbreaking, riveting, and expertly told, The Breakthrough is the story of the game-changing scientific discoveries that unleash our natural ability to recognize and defeat cancer, as told through the experiences of the patients, physicians, and cancer immunotherapy researchers who are on the front lines. This is the incredible true story of the race to find a cure, a dispatch from the life-changing world of modern oncological science, and a brave new chapter in medical history.

Charles Graeber

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