Good physicians are rarely dispassionate. They agonize and self-doubt over patients. — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
If the history of medicine is told through the stories of doctors, it is because their contributions stand in place of the… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“We hung our heads, ashamed. It was, I suspected, not the first time that a patient had consoled a doctor about the… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
I think the way we think about cancer, the way we treat cancer, has dramatically changed in the last century. There is… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“A patient with acute leukemia was brought to the hospital in a flurry of excitement, discussed on medical rounds with professorial grandiosity,… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“In the glass-paneled sanatorium where patients walked for leisure, Alsop recalled, the windows were covered in heavy wire mesh to prevent the… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“The experiments progress slowly," Mendel wrote. "At first a certain amount of patience was needed, but I soon found that matters went… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“But the story of leukemia--the story of cancer--isn't the story of doctors who struggle and survive, moving from institution to another. It… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“In an essay titled A View From the Front Line, Jencks described her experience with cancer as like being woken up midflight… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“Indeed, as predicted, when the gene encoding the hemoglobin B chain was later identified and sequenced in sickle-cell patients, there was a… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“Specificity refers to the ability of any medicine to discriminate between its intended target and its host. Killing a cancer cell in… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“Yet the hunger to treat patients still drove Farber. And sitting in his basement laboratory in the summer of 1947, Farber had… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share Image
“A note of caution: epigenetics is also on the verge of transforming into a dangerous idea. Epigenetic modifications of genes can potentially superpose historical… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
When you immerse yourself in medicine you realise that hope is not absolute. It's not that simple. — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“I had a novice's hunger for history, but also a novice's inability to envision it.” — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“Any extrapolation of history into the future presupposes an environment of static discovery—an oxymoron.” — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“Six decades and two years, no more than a passing glance of time, separate Mendel's initial experiments on peas and the court-mandated sterilization of… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“We now know that cells have ancient detectors that recognize viral genes and stamp them with chemical marks, like cancellation signs, to prevent their… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“Familial schizophrenia (like normal human features such as intelligence and temperament) is thus highly heritable but only moderately inheritable. In other words, genes-hereditary determinants-are… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“If you prefer an “academic life” as a retreat from reality, do not go into biology. This field is for a man or woman… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“But the pigs--seventy pounds of porcine weight that did not take kindly to weekly endoscopies--did not sprout any ulcers. And testing the theory on… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“One of the four genes used by Yamanaka to reverse cellular fate is called c-myc. Myc, the rejuvenating factor, is no ordinary gene: it… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
A breast cancer might turn out to have a close resemblance to a gastric cancer. And this kind of reorganization of cancer in terms… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“But in 1960, oncology was not yet ready for this proposal. Not until several years later did it strike the board that had fired… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“Mutants are necessary to maintain the essence of our selves. Our genomes has negotiated a fragile balance between counterpoised forces, pairing strand with opposite… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
“Even an ancient monster needs a name. To name an illness is to describe a certain condition of suffering—a literary act before it becomes… — Siddhartha Mukherjee Copy Share
