HMS alumnus Siddhartha Mukherjee wins Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction

Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. '00, is honored for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Joining a long and notable list of Harvard-affiliated physicians whose skill with words has enabled them to educate audiences far beyond their immediate circles of patients and colleagues, Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D. '00, has been awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for a work of general nonfiction for his book, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner). The Pulitzer judges praised the work as “an elegant inquiry, at once clinical and personal, into the long history of an insidious disease that, despite treatment breakthroughs, still bedevils medical science.”

Mukherjee is currently an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University; his lab "works on acute myeloid leukemia and pre-leukemic diseases, such as myelodysplasia (MDS)," seeking to “understand the pathogenesis of AML and MDS in order to develop novel drugs” against them.

 

Profiles from our archives of Atul Gawande and Jerome Groopman offer introductions to other Harvard-affiliated physician-authors. 

You might also like

He was Harvard’s quintessential people person.

The former economics concentrator brings his talent for crunching numbers to netminding.

Graduates John Lithgow, Bill Rauch, and Bess Wohl took home prizes on Sunday night.

Most popular

The Supreme Court Affirmative Action Rulings: An Analysis

The underlying arguments project clashing worldviews of race and appropriate remedies.

Harvard Weathers a Year of Turmoil

The federal government has launched unprecedented actions against the University. Here’s a guide.

Lafayette’s Unexpected Gift to George Washington: Pheasants

The two birds will be on display at Harvard this summer.

Explore More From Current Issue

Racing driver gives a thumbs up from inside a car, wearing a helmet and safety gear.

Harvard graduate and NASCAR racer Patrick Staropoli on pedals, attention, and fearlessness.

Black and white photo of Joseph Murray in a white lab coat sitting in an office.

Nobel Prize recipient Joseph E. Murray dedicated much of his career to organ transplant surgery.

Massachusetts Hall at Harvard Red brick building with a large clock on top, surrounded by green trees.

With a grade inflation vote and in the courts, the University argued that it’s taking steps to change.