I think you would have to be a nihilist to say that we are not making progress on cancer, just like you'd have to be hubristically optimistic to say that we have conquered cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee cancerconquerhubristically Change image and share on social
The idea that cancer genes are sitting inside each and every one of our chromosomes, just waiting to be corrupted or inactivated and thereby unleashing cancer, is, of course, one of the seminal ideas of oncology. Siddhartha Mukherjee cancerchromosomecorrupt share on social
I began wondering, can one really write a biography of an illness? But I found myself thinking of cancer as this character that has lived for 4,000 years, and I wanted to know what was its birth, what is its mind, its personality, its psyche? Siddhartha Mukherjee 000beginbiography share on social
Because I work on leukemia, the image of cancer I carry in my mind is that of blood. I imagine that doctors who work on breast cancer or pancreatic cancer have very different visualizations. Siddhartha Mukherjee bloodbreastcancer Change image and share on social
Some cancers are curable, while others are highly incurable. The spectrum is enormous. Metastatic pancreatic cancer is a highly incurable disease, whereas some leukemia forms are very curable. There is a big difference between one form and another. Siddhartha Mukherjee bigcancercurable share on social
Sidney Farber was a pathologist. He was called a doctor of the dead. He was a pathologist who sort of lived in the basement of the children's hospital in Boston, and he became very interested in childhood leukemia. And Farber began to inject this drug, aminopterin, into young kids, in order to see if he could get a remission. Siddhartha Mukherjee aminopterinbasementbegin share on social
It turns out that the very genes that turn on in cancer cells perform vital functions in normal cells. In other words, the very genes that allow our embryos to grow or our brains to grow, our bodies to grow, if you mutate them, if you distort them, then you unleash cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee bodybraincancer share on social
A strong intuition is much more powerful than a weal test. Normals teach us rules; outliers teach us laws. For every perfect medical experiment, there is a perfect human bias. Siddhartha Mukherjee biasexperimenthuman Change image and share on social
I think when we use 'stress', we are often using a kind of dummy word to try to fit many different things into one big category. Siddhartha Mukherjee bigcategorydummy Change image and share on social
Why did I write 'The Emperor of All Maladies?' A 56-year-old woman with an abdominal sarcoma, having undergone two remissions and a relapse, asked me to describe what she was battling. By the time I had finished answering her, I realised that I had written 600 pages. Siddhartha Mukherjee abdominalanswerask share on social