In this episode, Xavier Bonilla has a dialogue with Siddhartha Mukherjee about cellular biology. They define what a cell is and talk about the importance of Leeuwenhoek and Hooke in observing and discovering the cell. They talk about the five basic principles of cell biology and explore the anatomy of a cell. They explain how important B cells and T cells are for the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system for fighting diseases such as SARS-CoV-2 and HIV. They also talk about the potential of stem cells for human medicine and many other topics. 

Siddhartha Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer researcher and physician. He has his Bachelors in biology from Stanford University. As a Rhodes Scholar, he has a DPhil in immunology from Oxford University and an MD from Harvard University. He has published articles in journals such as Nature and The New England Journal of Medicine and in mainstream outlets such as The New York Times. He is the author of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, The New York Times best-Seller, The Gene: An Intimate History, and the author of the new book, The Song of The Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and The New Human. You can find his work here. Twitter: @drsidmukherjee

Get full access to Converging Dialogues at convergingdialogues.substack.com/subscribe