Skin Deep

THE PATCHWORK MOUSE

by JOSEPH HIXSON

228 pages. Anchor/Doubleday. $7.95.

When a young dermatologist named William Summerlin first reported in 1973 that he had succeeded in transplanting skin from a white man to a black and from one species of mouse to another, immunologists were intrigued. By the spring of 1974, their interest had turned to incredulity. One researcher after another reported an inability to duplicate the transplants. Summerlin, who had moved from the University of Minnesota to New York's Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, found himself under enormous pressure. One March morning, he gathered up a dozen grafted mice and started upstairs from his laboratory to show his work to Dr. Robert Good, head of S.K.I., and the dominant figure of modern immunology. On the way, Summerlin took a felt-tipped pen from his pocket and darkened the skins of two animals.

The doctored patches were detected by an alert technician and before lunchtime that day reported to Good. A frantic private investigation of the researcher and his work began. Rumors of the scandal soon reached reporters, and within days, both the scientific and lay press were filled with stories of Summerlin's downfall.

Given the medical implications, it was certain someone would write a book about the Sloan-Kettering scandal. What was not inevitable was a book as well wrought as The Patchwork Mouse. Hixson, a former newspaper reporter and public information officer at S.K.I., has gone beyond the emotionalism of the Summerlin affair to take a hard look at the promises and problems of big-league research. The result is a cautionary tale that no scientist--or layman--can afford to ignore.

Lopsided Philanthropy. Hixson draws an understanding portrait of Summerlin, a charming, disorganized South Carolinian who could never get his lab in order or his correspondence answered. He paints a somewhat more ambiguous picture of Good, a zealot who starts his working days in the predawn hours when most of his colleagues are asleep. Hixson recognizes that Good, who combines unbridled enthusiasm with a flair for publicity, may have contributed to a feeling by Summerlin that he would be letting S.K.I, down if his experiments flopped.

Yet neither Good nor Summerlin is the true villain of the piece. That role is played by the Catch-22 strategies of modern medical research. Federal grants, which guarantee jobs and prestige, are in decreasing supply. Where cancer is concerned, money tends to go to experimenters with positive track records. As The Patchwork Mouse illustrates, such lopsided philanthropy leads not only to personal tragedy but scandalous science. The dangers of a system fueled by anxiety and dependent on immediate success cannot be exaggerated. The Summerlin affair was only the handwriting; Hixson is worried about the wall itself.

Peter Stoler

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