‘In this compulsive readable book, Lane takes us on a riveting journey, ranging from the flow of energy to new ways of understanding cancer.Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic. And it puts the subtle differences between individuals in the same grand story as the rise of the living world itself. It links the emergence of consciousness with the inevitability of death. It connects the first photosynthetic bacteria with our peculiar cells. To grasp the Krebs cycle is to fathom the deep coherence of biology.

Nick Lane is in the vanguard of scientists now tracing its ramifications across the tree of life.

This conflicted merry-go-round of energy and matter has long taunted true understanding. 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. In Transformer, Nick Lane captures a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight. The answer could turn our picture of life on Earth upside down. 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. Yet in terms of information, there is no difference between a living cell and one that died a moment ago. He is the codirector of UCL's Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution (CLOE) and lives in London, England.What brings the Earth to life, and our own lives to an end?įor decades, biology has been dominated by information – the power of genes. Enlivened by Lane’s talent for distilling and humanizing complex research, Transformer offers an essential read for anyone fascinated by biology’s great mysteries.Ībout the Author: Nick Lane is professor of evolutionary biochemistry at University College London and an award-winning author of five books. Transformer traces the primacy of the Krebs cycle-and its reverse-from deep sea hydrothermal vents and the “Cambrian Explosion” to the individual, yet universal, experience of aging. Along the way, Lane brilliantly recounts the scientific detective work that discovered this process while deconstructing textbook views about metabolism. In Transformer, Lane guides readers through the “conflicted merry-go-round of energy and matter” that is the Krebs cycle. Biochemist Nick Lane is among the vanguard of researchers who ask how this complex, contradictory pathway of creation, destruction, and renewal within our cells could help us understand questions from the origins of life to the devastation of cancer. Generations of students have learned how the Krebs cycle generates the building blocks of life and fuels the furnace of respiration. A renowned biochemist’s illuminating inquiry into the Krebs cycle and the origins of life.

Transformer nick lane