From the Nominator

"Siddhartha Mukherjee is one of the world’s most famous physicians and medical historians—a man whose ability to balance a demanding career as an oncologist and cancer researcher with a side gig as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author has long awed his colleagues and book lovers alike. How does he do it? How does he find the time to treat patients, invent new medicines, and pen bestsellers about the history of his field all while raising a family with his artist wife Sarah Sze?   

Our entry is the most in-depth profile of Mukherjee ever published and reveals the surprisingly complex man—brilliant, flamboyant, self-questioning, and deeply moral—behind books such as The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene. It describes how Mukherjee, hardly the superhuman he may appear to be, was initially driven to study the history of oncology because he worried about whether he and other cancer researchers were actually making progress against the disease. Maybe, Mukherjee feared, he and his colleagues were blinded by their own professional ambitions and were pumping patients full of experimental drugs that merely prolonged their suffering?

Mukherjee’s historical scholarship eventually restored his faith in medical progress, but also convinced him that cancer medicine is in urgent need of new ideas, as the genomics revolution has failed to fully deliver on its promise. Amazingly, Mukherjee recently discovered in the historical archives some still valuable ideas, including a 19th-century doctor’s long-forgotten theory about how cancer spreads in the body, which Mukherjee is parlaying into a new leukemia treatment."

From the Judges

This profile had us from the first line to the last. The subject is a naturally intriguing and important person, but it was the writing that wowed us. It is graceful, surprising, and engaging, even when the topics covered were complicated. We read many stories that paired interesting subjects and great writing, but this was a true standout among them.