Good Reads: "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer"

Over a month ago at Dineen Coffee Co. 

It took me over a month, but I finally finished reading Siddhartha Mukherjee's Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer". It was a great read: the author did an outstanding job of providing a comprehensive account of the disease, beginning with the earliest descriptions of cancer and ending with a brief discussion of pharmacogenomic therapies.

Reading this book certainly put a lot of what I had learned in university into perspective. My hitherto flat and disjointed memories of cancer lectures were suddenly given a lot of depth and coherence thanks to Siddhartha. When I first learned about topics like oncogenes or therapies like Gleevec, I was not aware of their true significance–they were simply terms I learned about in class, accepted as fact, and feverishly memorized for exams. It is only now that I belatedly understand the gravity of these discoveries and their impact on prolonging the lives of patients worldwide.

Cancer is undoubtedly a multi-faceted disease for which we have yet to find a universal cure, but Siddhartha reminds readers that our position against the disease is not as grim as our perceptions. Cancer incidence rates are gradually decreasing, and more effective, targeted therapies are being developed as our understanding of the disease deepens. I am never more certain that these trends will continue in the years to come.