{"product_id":"drug-hunters-the-improbable-quest-to-discover-new-medicines","title":"Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines","description":"The surprising, behind-the-scenes story of how our medicines are discovered, told by a veteran drug hunter.\n\nThe search to find medicines is as old as disease, which is to say as old as the human race. Through serendipity— by chewing, brewing, and snorting—some Neolithic souls discovered opium, alcohol, snakeroot, juniper, frankincense, and other helpful substances. Ötzi the Iceman, the five-thousand-year-old hunter frozen in the Italian Alps, was found to have whipworms in his intestines and Bronze-age medicine, a worm-killing birch fungus, knotted to his leggings. Nowadays, Big Pharma conglomerates spend billions of dollars on state-of the art laboratories staffed by PhDs to discover blockbuster drugs. Yet, despite our best efforts to engineer cures, luck, trial-and-error, risk, and ingenuity are still fundamental to medical discovery.\n\nThe Drug Hunters is a colorful, fact-filled narrative history of the search for new medicines from our Neolithic forebears to the professionals of today, and from quinine and aspirin to Viagra, Prozac, and Lipitor. The chapters offer a lively tour of how new drugs are actually found, the discovery strategies, the mistakes, and the rare successes. Dr. Donald R. Kirsch infuses the book with his own expertise and experiences from thirty-five years of drug hunting, whether searching for life-saving molecules in mudflats by Chesapeake Bay or as a chief science officer and research group leader at major pharmaceutical companies.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 1628727187\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: BVV.1628727187.VG\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Very Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Kirsch, Donald R.|Ogas, Ogi\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Book has little sign of wear or use  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Blue Vase Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43577393250365,"sku":"BVV.1628727187.VG","price":18.63,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0589\/4225\/9261\/files\/1628727187-0.jpg?v=1788644064","url":"https:\/\/www.bluevasebooks.com\/products\/drug-hunters-the-improbable-quest-to-discover-new-medicines","provider":"Blue Vase Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}