What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end?
For decades, biology has been dominated by information - the power of genes. Yet in terms of information there is no difference between a living cell and one that died a moment ago. What really animates cells and sets them apart from non-living matter? This question goes back to the flawed geniuses and heroic origins of modern biology. The answer could turn our picture of life on Earth upside down.
In Transformer, Nick Lane captures a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight. At its core is a cycle of reactions that transforms inorganic molecules into the building blocks of life, and the reverse - the iconic Krebs cycle that sits at the heart of metabolism. This conflicted merry-go-round of energy and matter has long taunted true understanding. Nick Lane is in the vanguard of scientists now tracing its ramifications across the tree of life.
To grasp the Krebs cycle is to fathom the deep coherence of biology. It connects the first photosynthetic bacteria with our own peculiar cells. It links the emergence of consciousness with the inevitability of death. And it puts the subtle differences between individuals in the same grand story as the rise of the living world itself.
Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.
About the Author
Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London, and the author of Life Ascending, which won the 2010 Royal Society Prize, and The Vital Question, of which Bill Gates wrote 'this biology book blew me away'. His lab is attempting to recreate the chemical conditions that drove the origin of life on Earth.
Industry Reviews
'In this compulsive readable book, Lane takes us on a riveting journey, ranging from the flow of energy to new ways of understanding cancer. Lane provides a luminous understanding of how scientists, including Lane himself, are rethinking energy and living organisms.'
Siddhartha Mukherjee, author
'Hugely important ... a powerfully persuasive case for life being about energy flow, flux and change. In Transformer, chemistry is quite literally brought to life'
Jim Al-Khalili, author
'Amazing! Takes science writing to a new level ... with soaring prose but uncompromising on scientific detail, Transformer made me think about life on earth in a completely different way.'
Daniel M. Davis, author
'Hugely ambitious and tremendously exciting ... Transformer shows how a molecular dance from the dawn of time still sculpts our lives today. I read with rapt attention.'
Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist and author
'A thrilling and highly persuasive account of what makes life and how the miracle started, coaxed not by genes but a remarkable cycle of energy and matter - a chemical cycle able to conjure the material of life from the elements of a rocky blue planet. This hugely important book is set to become a landmark, transforming our understanding of how life works. Lane's infectious enthusiasm had me gripped on a tour down the aeons and deep into the inner workings of our cells, to discover the chemistry that gives me the sentience for such fundamental self-knowledge. Marvellous'
Gaia Vince, author
