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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The genes associated with cancer also play essential roles in normal body functions.
This quote highlights the intricate relationship between genes that are crucial for normal physiological processes and those that can lead to cancer. It emphasizes that the very genes that contribute to our development and bodily functions are also implicated in the cancer process, showcasing the duality of their roles—both beneficial in health and potentially harmful in disease.
Themes
GenesCancerPhysiologyBiologyHealth
In practice
Example use cases
In a scientific conference discussing cancer research findings.
More from Siddhartha Mukherjee
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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.
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Cancer's life is a recapitulation of the body's life, its existence a pathological mirror of our own. Susan Sontag warned against overburdening an illness with metaphors. But this is not a metaphor. Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves.
Siddhartha MukherjeeRead
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