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A photo of Siddhartha Mukherjee by Mooy College of Communication –

Top 10 Facts about Siddhartha Mukherjee 

Do you love reading books? Today we are realising the best of all time author of most and best influential books about health in the world so far so good. Look for his collection ad you’ll be full of knowledge only because of the Indian author.

Siddhartha Mukherjee was born on 21 July 1970. He is an Indian-American physician, biologist, and author. He is best known for his 2010 book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, which won notable literary prizes including the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, and the Guardian First Book Award, among others.

In 2011 Time magazine listed the book in the “All-Time 100 Nonfiction Books” as the 100 most influential books of the last century. His 2016 book The Gene: An Intimate History made it to #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was among The New York Times 100 best books of 2016, and a finalist for the Wellcome Trust Prize and the Royal Society Prize for Science Books. In the article are the top ten Siddhartha Mukherjee.

1. He came from a working-class family

A photo of Siddhartha by Moody College of Communication –

Siddhartha Mukherjee was born to a Bengali family in New Delhi, India. His father, Sibeswar Mukherjee, was an executive with Mitsubishi, a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. His mother Chandana Mukherjee, was a former school teacher from Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. The family was well off in terms of financial status to take their only son to school.

2. Siddhartha was very sharp in his studies

He attended St. Columba’s School in Delhi, where he won the school’s highest award, the ‘Sword of Honour, in 1989. As a biology major at Stanford University, he worked in Nobel Laureate Paul Berg’s laboratory, defining cellular genes that change the behaviours of cancer cells. He earned membership in Phi Beta Kappa in 1992 and completed his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in 1993.

Mukherjee won a Rhodes Scholarship for doctoral research at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He worked on the mechanism of activation of the immune system by viral antigens. He was awarded a D.Phil. in 1997 for his thesis titled The processing and presentation of viral antigens.

After graduation, he attended Harvard Medical School, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in 2000. The achievements he made in his education postulate that he was very serious in his studies.

3. He worked as a resident in internal medicine from 200 to 2003

As an internist or physician, Siddhartha worked in the medical speciality dealing with the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of internal diseases. This was immediately after he had graduated from Harvard Medical School, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in 2000.

The institution he practised medicine was the Massachusetts General Hospital the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School located in the West End neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the third oldest general hospital in the United States and has a capacity of 999 beds.

4. He joined Columbia University Medical Center as an assistant professor in 2009

A photo of Columbia University by InSapphoWeTrust –

Siddhartha started training in oncology from 2003 to 2006 as a Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute “under Harvard Medical School” in Boston, Massachusetts.

It was then in 2009 when that he joined the faculty of the Department of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Columbia University Medical Center as an assistant professor. His laboratory is based at Columbia University’s Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.

5. He is an expert in Cancer research

Mukherjee is a trained haematologist and oncologist whose research focuses on the links between normal stem cells and cancer cells. Through his findings, he had shown the roles of cells in cancer therapy. He has been investigating the microenvironment of stem cells, particularly blood-forming (haematopoietic) stem cells.

Mukherjee and his co-workers have identified several genes and chemicals that can alter the microenvironment, or niche, and thereby alter the behaviour of normal stem cells, as well as cancer cells.

6. Mukherjee’s team is also known for defining and characterizing the bone formation

A photo of Sidhartha by ShajiA –

Mukherjee’s team is also known for defining and characterizing skeletal stem/ progenitor cells also called osteochondroreticular. In 2015, they prospectively identified these progenitor cells from bone, and showed, using lineage tracing, that these cells can give rise to bone, cartilage, and reticular cells. They established that these cells form a part of the adult skeleton in vertebrates and that they maintain and repair the skeleton.

7. His book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer was published in 2010

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer written by Siddhartha was Published on 16 November 2010 by Scribner, it won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The jury called it an elegant inquiry, at once clinical, and personal. The Guardian wrote that Mukherjee managed to convey not only a forensically precise picture of what he saw but a shiver too, of what he felt.

8. What was unique about his book The Song of the Cell?

What was unique in his book is that In “The Song of the Cell”, published in 2022, Mukherjee describes the history and medical mystery of the discovery of cells. Narrated in metaphors, many of which he created, such as “gunslinging sheriff for antibody and “gumshoe detective” to T cell, he tells the development of cell biology and how it became vital to modern medicine, from genetic engineering to immunotherapies.

9. Siddhartha is married to Sarah Sze

Sarah Sze is an American artist widely recognized for challenging the boundaries of painting, installation, and architecture. Sze’s sculptural practice ranges from slight gestures discovered in hidden spaces to expansive installations that scale walls and colonize architecture.

Sze’s work explores the role of technology and information in contemporary life utilizing everyday materials. Drawing from Modernist traditions, Sze’s work often represents objects caught in suspension. She lives in New York City with her husband Siddhartha Mukherjee and their two daughters.

10. Mukherjee also criticises the IQ test as a measure of intelligence

He endorses the theory of multiple intelligences introduced by Howard Gardner over general intelligence as far as IQ test is concerned. He argues that the results of IQ tests for determining general intelligence do not represent intelligence in the real world.

Reviewing the book in The Spectator, Stuart Ritchie, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh, remarked that Gardner’s theory is “debunked” and that “general intelligence is probably the most well-replicated phenomenon in all of psychological science.”