The Crooked Mirror of Life: The Main Myths About Cancer, and What Modern Science Thinks About Them

Few diseases or conditions of the human body are surrounded by as many myths and misconceptions as cancer. At the same time, many myths are based on echoes of real scientific theories, distorted beyond recognition by "oral folk art" in gossip and retellings. The author of the book, molecular biologist Maria Kondratova, who works at the Curie Institute in Paris, has set herself the task of separating the wheat from the chaff and providing the reader with an accessible yet scientific understanding of the nature of cancer diseases and modern approaches to their diagnosis and treatment. Molecular oncology is an impressive example of how fundamental scientific knowledge about the structure of the genome and cellular regulation systems is translated into medicines and diagnostic methods that save thousands of lives. And this book, despite the obvious dramatic nature of the chosen theme, is not about disease and death, but about life - its complexity, fragility, and beauty.