Cancer

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer researcher and physician. Mukherjee gives a brilliant and thorough examination of the history of cancer while explaining in such a way that the lay person can understand its origins and the battle to treat, prevent and cure the disease.

Cancer is a disease that is borne in the cells. Abnormal cells change and grow at an alarming rate and overtake the normal cells. Mukherjee explains that biology is based on two fundamental tenets. One tenet is that all bodies are made up of cells. The second tenet is that cells arise only from other cells. Cells perform in one of two ways regarding growth. Either they increase in number or in size. "Virchow called these two modes hyperplasia and hypertrophy. In hypertrophy, the number of cells did not change; instead, each individual cell merely grew in size - like a balloon being blown...