Perspective: Meeting of minds

When cancer researcher and physician David Agus met particle physicist Murray Gell-Mann in 2009, they soon discovered that they occupied different worlds. Agus says their interaction showed him that "borrowing from the world of physics could help my field in unimaginable ways" and that their interaction has "shifted not only how I work and approach medicine, but also how I ask questions, how I solve problems, and how I do science". What follows is a conversation between the biologist and the physicist about an issue that may be blocking progress in cancer research.