Documentary on Indian American's book wins Emmy nomination

A documentary based on Pulitzer Prize winner and Indian American doctor Siddhartha Mukherjee's book on cancer has been nominated for an Emmy Award that recognises excellence in the television industry.

Produced and co-written by US filmmaker Ken Burns, the documentary titled "Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies" is a six-hour series for American TV channel PBS and is based on Mukherjee's book "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer", Emmy's official website stated.

The documentary tells the complete story of cancer, from its first description in an ancient Egyptian scroll to the gleaming laboratories of modern research institutions.

It interweaves a sweeping historical narrative; with intimate stories about contemporary patients; and an investigation into the latest scientific breakthroughs that may have brought us, at long last, to the brink of lasting cures, the Emmy website further read.

In 2010, Simon & Schuster published Mukherjee's book, detailing the evolution of diagnosis and treatment of human cancers from ancient times.

The Oprah magazine listed it in among "Top 10 Books of 2010". The book was also listed in "The 10 Best Books of 2010" by The New York Times and the "Top 10 Non-fiction Books" by Time.

In 2011, the book was nominated as a "National Book Critics' Circle Award" finalist. In the same year, it won the annual Pulitzer Prize in the "General Non-fiction" category.

The Pulitzer citation called it "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 working as an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and staff physician at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City.

He has been the Plummer Visiting Professor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, the Joseph Garland lecturer at the Massachusetts Medical Society and an honourary visiting professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The New York-based oncologist was recently felicitated with the Padma Shri - the Indian government's fourth highest civilian award.