Understanding Cancer - from the Perspective of a Researcher, Teacher, and Father
\u201cMitosis is not only important from a fundamental point of view to try to understand how the body can develop all the cells that it has and heal its wounds and so forth, but also it represents an entr\xe9e into a process that you can attack as a physician trying to block the processes that are fundamental to cancer\u2026I\u2019ve now spent 50 years on mitosis, and I\u2019ve never been bored.\u201d\n\nIn a career that has spanned decades, with seminal accomplishments that earned him an American Cancer Society Research Professorship, Richard McIntosh, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has profoundly impacted our understanding of mitosis. \n\nAnd now he has written an undergraduate textbook for non-science majors, Understanding Cancer; an Introduction to the Biology, Medicine and Societal Implications of this Disease.\n\nIn this conversation he talks about the importance of mitosis, his motivation for writing this new book for students who aren\u2019t necessarily scientists, and his son\u2019s battle with stage 4 lung cancer.\n\n2:14 \u2013 On why it\u2019s important for undergraduates who aren\u2019t majoring in science to understand cancer.\n\n7:37 \u2013 On the diagnosis of his son, Rob, with stage 4 lung cancer\n\n12:40 \u2013 On how understanding the science behind cancer can help friends and families who are supporting patients dealing with cancer \n\n15:19 \u2013 What is mitosis? It\u2019s kind of like separating a bowl of tangled up spaghetti noodles into two perfect halves.\n\n19:41 \u2013 On how mitosis\u2014or the control of mitosis\u2014differs in cancer cells\n\n21:16 \u2013 On the impact of ACS funding, and how he built an infrared laser into (wait for it) a laser trap with which he measured \u201cthe forces that microtubules generate as they grow and shrink in a test tube.\u201d\n\n24:25 \u2013 A message he\u2019d like to share with cancer patients and caregivers