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
To solve a problem is to create new problems, new knowledge immediately reveals new areas of ignorance, and the need for new experiments. At least, in the field of fast reactions, the experiments do not take very long to perform.
George PorterRead
The methods of theoretical physics should be applicable to all those branches of thought in which the essential features are expressible with numbers.
Paul DiracRead
Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.
Robert K. MertonRead
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we 'keep' our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This 'solution', I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations.
David R. BrowerRead
A most unfailing experience... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
Johannes KeplerRead
Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.
Carl SaganRead