A Novel Brings a Cancer Research Laboratory to Life  A Novel
Brings a Cancer Research Laboratory to Life  After 2 years of
steady failure with a potential cancer drug, Cliff, an oncology
postdoc, suddenly achieves dramatic cures in mice, to the point
that his findings are questioned as "too good to be true." Is it
fraud or sloppy recordkeeping, or maybe a true breakthrough? The
pleasure in reading Allegra Goodman's novel Intuition (The Dial
Press, 2006) comes not so much from the plotline (the initial
giddy celebration of the findings, and then the near destruction
of the lab when fraud is alleged) as from the richness of the
depiction of an oncology research lab and its motley
inhabitants.  The postdocs include Cliff; Robin (his girlfriend
and later accuser); Prithwish (who calls his avocado plant grown
from seed his "most successful experiment"); and the
"deliciously self-deprecating" Feng, whose pessimistic
definitions, known as "Fungi," are collected in the lab
(Successful grant proposal: "major disaster,