Siddhartha Mukherjee is a distinguished physician and researcher, specializing in the field of oncology. His literary work delves deeply into the complex history and future of cancer. Mukherjee's writing expertly blends scientific rigor with profound human empathy, offering readers an accessible and compelling exploration of the disease. His ability to translate intricate medical subjects into engaging narratives marks him as a unique author.
"Presenting revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, the author draws on his own experience as a researcher, doctor, and prolific reader to explore how the discovery of cells created a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulation of cells"--
'A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics. You'll be spellbound' Brian Cox This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is to each of the 100 billion modern humans who have ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in every one of our genomes we each carry the history of our species - births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration and a lot of sex. In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about human history, and what history can now tell us about our genes. From Neanderthals to murder, from redheads to race, dead kings to plague, evolution to epigenetics, this is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be. *** 'A thoroughly entertaining history of Homo sapiens and its DNA in a manner that displays popular science writing at its best' Observer 'Magisterial, informative and delightful' Peter Frankopan 'An extraordinary adventure...From the Neanderthals to the Vikings, from the Queen of Sheba to Richard III, Rutherford goes in search of our ancestors, tracing the genetic clues deep into the past' Alice Roberts
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author draws on his scientific knowledge and research to describe the magisterial history of a scientific idea, the quest to decipher the master-code of instructions that makes and defines humans; that governs our form, function, and fate; and that determines the future of our children. The story of the gene begins in earnest in an obscure Augustinian abbey in Moravia in 1856 where Gregor Mendel, a monk working with pea plants, stumbles on the idea of a "unit of heredity." It intersects with Darwin's theory of evolution, and collides with the horrors of Nazi eugenics in the 1940s. The gene transforms postwar biology. It invades discourses concerning race and identity and provides startling answers to some of the most potent questions coursing through our political and cultural realms. It reorganizes our understanding of sexuality, gender identity, sexual orientation, temperament, choice, and free will, thus raising the most urgent questions affecting our personal realms. Above all, the story of the gene is driven by human ingenuity and obsessive minds--from Mendel and Darwin to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Rosalind Franklin to the thousands of scientists working today to understand the code of codes. Woven through the book is the story of Mukherjee's own family and its recurring pattern of schizophrenia, a haunting reminder that the science of genetics is not confined to the laboratory but is vitally relevant to everyday lives. The moral complexity of genetics reverberates even more urgently today as we learn to "read" and "write" the human genome--unleashing the potential to change the fates and identities of our children and our children's children.--Adapted from dust jacket
** NEW YORK TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER ** The Gene is the story of one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in our history from the author of The Emperor of All Maladies. The story begins in an Augustinian abbey in 1856, and takes the reader from Darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution, to the horrors of Nazi eugenics, to present day and beyond - as we learn to "read" and "write" the human genome that unleashes the potential to change the fates and identities of our children. Majestic in its scope and ambition, The Gene provides us with a definitive account of the epic history of the quest to decipher the master-code that makes and defines humans - and paints a fascinating vision of both humanity's past and future. For fans of Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Being Mortal by Atul Gwande. 'Siddhartha Mukherjee is the perfect person to guide us through the past, present, and future of genome science' Bill Gates 'A thrilling and comprehensive account of what seems certain to be the most radical, controversial and, to borrow from the subtitle, intimate science of our time...Read this book and steel yourself for what comes next' Sunday Times
One of the world's premiere cancer researchers reveals an urgent philosophy on the little-known principles that govern medicine--and how understanding these principles can empower everyone.
Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. From the Persian Queen Atossa, whose Greek slave may have cut off her diseased breast, to the nineteenth-century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to Mukherjee’s own leukemia patient, Carla, The Emperor of All Maladies is about the people who have soldiered through fiercely demanding regimens in order to survive—and to increase our understanding of this iconic disease. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer. --siddharthamukherjee.com