How One Man Survived Late-Stage Cancer and Gave Us Kurzgesagt

30/10 00:15 - How One Man Survived Late-Stage Cancer and Gave Us Kurzgesagt
Kurzgesagt doesn't usually tell personal stories, but this one is different, and it's full of science anyway. Philipp Dettmer, the founder and head writer of Kurzgesagt, went through chemotherapy treatment for cancer in 2018. Years later, he is ready to tell the story, narrated by Steve Taylor and illustrated in the neon minimalist Kurzgesagt style. The drug is called Cisplatin. Like most chemotherapy drugs, it is very toxic and does quite bit of damage to a human body. Cancer therapies were developed by calibrating how much was required to kill cancer without killing the patient. That's why chemotherapy is so debilitating, and only worth it at the end when you are deemed cancer-free.  Dettmer explains how Cisplatin was developed and how it works in the body. His body, in this case. It's particularly effective against testicular cancer because of the unique role those organs' cells are designed for. There's a lot of violence at the molecular level, with success at the end. And the cancer battle is directly related to why we have Kurzgesagt in the first place. The story is only 12:24; the rest is promotional. ...