It is hard to look at the tumor and not come away with the feeling that one has encountered a powerful monster in its infancy
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
Cancer was not disorganized chromosomal chaos. It was organized chromosomal chaos
Interpretation
What this quote means
Cancer is not random chaos; it follows an organized pattern of chromosomal changes.
This quote by Siddhartha Mukherjee highlights the complexity and organized nature of cancer at the genetic level. Rather than being merely a disorderly expression of cell malfunction, cancer embodies a specific and organized set of chromosomal alterations that contribute to its development and behavior, challenging the misconception that it is simply chaos.
Themes
CancerGeneticsChromosomalOrganizationChaos
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the latest findings in cancer research, one might say: 'As Siddhartha Mukherjee puts it, cancer was not disorganized chromosomal chaos; it was organized chromosomal chaos, emphasizing the systematic nature of these cellular changes.'
More from Siddhartha Mukherjee
All quotes →We may have to learn to live with cancer rather than die of it. It means a big change in our mindset and how we do research. We haven't quite reached there yet.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
One day, I had a patient who was going through chemotherapy who came to me and said, 'I'm going to go on with what I'm doing, but I need you to tell me what it is that I'm fighting.'
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
Nearly every one of the genes that turns out to be a key player in cancer has a vital role in the normal physiology of an organism. The genes that enable our brains and blood cells to develop are implicated in cancer.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
It remains an astonishing, disturbing fact that in America - a nation where nearly every new drug is subjected to rigorous scrutiny as a potential carcinogen, and even the bare hint of a substance's link to cancer ignites a firestorm of public hysteria and media anxiety - one of the most potent and common carcinogens known to humans can be freely bought and sold at every corner store for a few dollars.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
It felt—nearly twenty-five hundred years after Hippocrates had naively coined the overarching term karkinos—that modern oncology was hardly any more sophisticated in its taxonomy of cancer.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
Similar quotes
While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory.
Niels BohrRead
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. We have learned a lot about other human organs. We know how the heart pumps and how the kidney does what it does. To a certain degree, we have read the letters of the human genome. But the brain has 100 billion neurons. Each one of those has about 10,000 connections.
Francis CollinsRead
Science does not limit itself merely to what is currently verifiable. But it is interested in questions that are potentially verifiable (or, rather, falsifiable).
Sam HarrisRead
'Closed timelike curve' is the jargon for time travel. It means you go out, come back and meet yourself in the past.
Kip ThorneRead
There is no science in this world like physics. Nothing comes close to the precision with which physics enables you to understand the world around you. It's the laws of physics that allow us to say exactly what time the sun is going to rise. What time the eclipse is going to begin. What time the eclipse is going to end.
Neil Degrasse TysonRead
It is in our genes to understand the universe if we can, to keep trying even if we cannot, and to be enchanted by the act of learning all the way.
Lewis ThomasRead