Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're

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Siddhartha Mukherjee is an oncologist and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine

at Columbia University and a cancer physician at Columbia University and NYU Presbyterian Hospital.

He's a former Rhodes scholar. He graduated from Stanford, the University of Oxford,

where he got a PhD in studying cancer-causing viruses. And he got his medical degree from Harvard

Medical School. His laboratory focuses on discovering new cancer drugs. He's published articles

and commentary and such journals as Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, Nureon,

and in publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic. He won the

Pulitzer Prize for his book on cancer, The Emperor of All Malatites, and his most recent book,

which is the topic of our conversation, is the gene and intimate history.

Okay, and now I give you Siddhartha Mukherjee.

I am here with Siddhartha Mukherjee. Siddhartha, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Yeah, my pleasure.

Well listen, you have a great job. It looks like you're doing amazing things in the world on at least

two fronts. I just want to start before we get into your book. I want to start by

getting you to describe what it is you do and how much of your time is spent in each of these two

...