“[M]eticulously researched and precisely written. . . . Keating and Cambrosio’s incredibly detailed and technical account of the development of medical oncology in the United States and Europe is written for historians of science and medicine as well as for the oncology community. Scholars in these fields will recognize this book as an important addition to the literature on clinical trials, biomedicine, and technology studies.”

Rebecca M. Kluchin, California State University, Sacramento | American Historical Review

“Keating and Cambrosio have made a major contribution to this area and scholars of any stripe working on cancer or biomedicine, and even the further-flung fields of statistics and molecular biology, will benefit from reckoning with its insights.”

Robin Wolfe Scheffler, Yale University | Medical History

“Cancer on Trial is a substantial contribution to our historical and sociological understanding of clinical cancer research and is highly recommended for anyone interested in the actual emergence of bioscience in clinical settings. This excellent book treats the meteoric rise of cancer research and treatment across the globe since the mid-twentieth century by focusing explicitly on transnational cooperative clinical trials as the hub through which oncology emerged as a new form of medical and scientific practice.”

Stephen Pemberton | Metascience

“Cancer on Trial is a landmark study in historical and social studies of clinical research. Keating and Cambrosio brilliantly analyze the apparatus through which oncology trials are conducted. Through detailed examinations of specific trials in three periods, they show how tightly coupled epistemic, institutional, and technical changes constituted a new form of clinical research practice. This carefully argued and meticulously documented book will be immensely interesting not only to scholars in science and technology studies, but also to cancer researchers interested in the origins of their experimental practices.”

Stephen Hilgartner, Cornell University

“This innovative book is more than a history of cancer research and clinical trials in the twentieth century, it’s a history of contemporary biomedicine all together. Whereas most previous scholarly accounts have placed the laboratory at center stage, Cancer on Trial finally gives the clinic the attention it deserves. Clinical trials might seem less glamorous than ‘eureka moments’ in the laboratory, but they are certainly more representative of the workings of today’s biomedical research. By focusing on cancer clinical trials as a ‘style of practice,’ rather than as the routine testing of new treatments, Keating and Cambrosio show compellingly how biomedicine has evolved into a specific kind of research enterprise redefining at the same time treatments, diseases, patients, and researchers. Cancer on Trial offers to its readers powerful intellectual tools to understand current debates about the successes and failures of cancer therapies, the role of public and private research, and the promises and perils of personalized medicine. Anyone interested in current biomedical research will benefit immensely from reading this book.”

Bruno J. Strasser, University of Geneva and Yale University

“This remarkable book charts the emergence of a clinical field—medical oncology—for which experimental protocols have become routinized as a form of normal practice. Cancer on Trial will make a lasting contribution to the sociology of scientific knowledge, the history of clinical practice, and the understanding of the networked basis of biomedical research.”

Jeremy A. Greene, Harvard University

“Today’s cancer patient inhabits a bewildering chemo-world of trials and protocols, risks and probabilities, toxic chemicals and noxious side effects. What brought this new world into being? With a powerful grasp of historical and technical detail, Keating and Cambrosio tell the important story of the rise of the organizational forms of modern ‘oncopolitics,’ and they deftly capture the unique character of a new style of scientific practice.”

Steven Epstein, Northwestern University