The Emperor of All Maladies is a biography of the unraveling mystery of cancer in the search for a cure. In the opening of the book, I found alarming statistics the author gives us. Only in the United States, “one in three women and one in two men will develop cancer during their lifetime”. Siddhartha Mukherjee, has interesting storytelling that immerses you in the mind of cancer patients, physicians and researchers, giving historical context as we move along the different approach and discoveries in the war against cancer.
When reading the book, the definition and history of cancer is built. At the beginning, Dr. Sidney Farber, a pediatric pathologist, decided from the basement of the Children’s Hospital to look at cancer from a new perspective, starting from the building blocks of the cells. An approach that seems basic in today’s research, but revolutionary at this point in history. The building of our understanding came from developing and trying many treatments over the years. The Emperor of the Maladies explains the history of breast cancer treatments starting from the mastectomy to radiation, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and target therapy.
Today, we are still fighting the same war. When Mukherjee describes the search of the most favorable cocktail of chemicals for an anticancer drug, he states that, “the fundamental biology of cancer was so poorly understood that defining such molecular targets was virtually inconceivable in the 1960s.” Working in a molecular dynamics laboratory has given me the opportunity to learn about the new technologies resources that we have today. To understand how a molecule can affect a cell, an organ, and ultimately a person’s life.
I feel encouraged in my everyday work of programming and mathematical formulas to see further and feel a sense of responsibility of being part of this fight in history to cure cancer.
-Angelica Marquez, University of Texas at El Paso
