I assume we are all sufficiently familiar with the game of chess to understand and appreciate the degree of concentration and analytical thinking that goes into successful play of the game.
The cancer researcher quoted in the article below is an example of someone who was himself a chess prodigy when young, and who asserts now that the process of playing chess calls for ways of thinking and analyzing that can be applied successfully to performing cancer research.
From the article linked below:
"Like plotting out your next moves in a chess game — without knowing how your opponent will respond — developing a scientific experiment involves considering all possible outcomes while working off a hypothesis."
“Combining the efforts of scientists with different expertise to generate synergy is not unlike the way a good chess player uses different pieces — each with their own strengths and weaknesses — to achieve an outcome that would otherwise be impossible.”
“I think managing a large number of collaborations and holding lots of complex information in my head are skills that I probably acquired years ago through playing chess.” And the view of another physician in another article:
“I would liken our efforts to a game of chess. The best chance we have of beating cancer at its own game is to predict its next move and we are developing our play. Instead of simply responding to cancer’s every move, we want to become more akin to a grandmaster – looking several steps ahead, seeing the patterns in play and devising our own strategy to thwart it.” Chess has been called, and probably rightly so, the world's most complicated game. It certainly requires a powerful level of thinking and evaluating, and as such may well develop and encourage mental skills that are indeed transferable to cancer research.
Perhaps one day we may indeed be able to say, appropriately, "checkmate" to cancer.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailv2&ccid=a9s%2b1peu&id=552393fbaae65bdd7c6929a12771203ced245247&thid=oip.a9s-1peup8sdogljctx3gahae6&mediaurl=https%3a%2F%2Fgenome.duke.edu%2Fsites%2Fgenome.duke.edu%2Ffiles%2Fgavilan-checkmate.png&cdnurl=https%3a%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2Fr.03db3ed69794a7cb03a062c9713c7718%3frik%3Dr1ik7twgcsehkq%26pid%3Dimgraw%26r%3D0&exph=699&expw=1052&q=cancer+and+chess&simid=608007802646037577&form=irprst&ck=023ef59a227263bc592927451170e823&selectedindex=0&qpvt=cancer+and+chess&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0Article:
https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/cancer-articles/lev-becker-how-childhood-experience-playing-chess-informs-his-cancer-research