In his new book The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee delves into the history and future of the disease.

Rather than being a rare exception in our otherwise healthy lives, "quite possibly, cancer is our normalcy," Mukherjee writes. "We are inherently destined to slouch towards a malignant end," because the gene mutations that lead to cancer are an inevitable part of our genetic heritage.

Overcoming that genetic heritage, Mukherjee says, would be "a technological victory unlike any other we've ever accomplished as a species."

Tuesday on the NewsHour, health correspondent Betty Ann Bowser talks to Mukherjee about his book and the patients whose questions inspired him to write it.