Cancer “biographer” comes to USF

Posted Sep 20, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Sep 20, 2011 at 01:44 PM

To all of you Siddhartha Mukherjee fans:

He’s coming to USF. Next Tuesday.

Mukerherjee is the doctor-writer who won the Pulitzer Prize this year for his book about cancer, “The Emperor of All Maladies.”
And, as the New York Times pointed out in a story in November, he looks more like a Bollywood leading man than a cancer researcher.

But a cancer researcher he is.

His quest to answer a patient’s question drove him to write the book, the Times wrote.

He was talking to her about her treatment for stomach cancer, and she said. “I’m willing to go on fighting, but I need to know what it is that I’m battling.”

“It was an embarrassing moment,” he said, “I couldn’t answer her, and I couldn’t point her to a book that would. Answering her question – that was the urgency that drove me, really.”

The talk starts at 6:30 p.m. in the new Interdisciplinary Science Building Auditorium.

Be aware that seating is limited.

This is part of what USF calls the Frontier Forum, put on by the USF Beta Kappa Alumni Faculty, the Office of the Provost and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.

You can go here to find out more.