Cells

“A vibrant exploration of the history of life and how it works at the most basic level.” – Kirkus Reviews“A dazzling illustrated overview of the origin and evolution of living things, from the first protocells to complex multicellular organisms… . informative and entertaining.” – Publishers Weekly“Christian has masterfully combined art, the most recent scientific knowledge, and ease of understanding… . [Cells] allows us to follow the odyssey of life with real pleasure.” – from the foreword by Eric Karsenti“Praise for the French Edition “Whether [you’re] passionate about biology or a novice, one enters this book as if opening a treasure chest.” – Pour La Science / Scientific American (France)“Christian Sardet has masterfully combined the beauty of art with the rigor of science.” – Le Monde“Vibrant words and drawings … Even if you didn’t love biology courses, this book reads like a novel with unexpected and captivating episodes.” – L’Obs“These superbly graphic and colorful pages allow us to follow the odyssey of life with great pleasure. A fine achievement.” – We Demain magazine“A fascinating journey through time and the infinitely small.” – Arte 28 Minutes (French prime-time TV)“An inner journey, this book with its mesmerizing images offers a deep dive into the heart of life.” – Beaux-arts

Christian Sardet, PhD, is a founder of and emeritus researcher at the Developmental Biology Laboratory at the Institut de la Mer de Villefranche (IMEV), under the aegis of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Paris-Sorbonne University. He earned his PhD in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many scientific publications and of the book Plankton: Wonders of the Drifting World (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and is one of the founders of the Tara Oceans expedition. Sardet is the recipient of two prizes from the French Academy of Sciences and the Légion d’Honneur, among many other awards. He is also an artist and the creator of award-winning films. Sardet lives near Nice in the south of France.

Eric Karsenti holds a PhD in immunology and cell biology from the Pasteur Institute in Paris. After working as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Marc Kirschner’s laboratory at UCSF, he went on to establish his own group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, which made significant contributions to our understanding of the cell-cycle clock, mitotic spindle assembly, and cell morphogenesis. At EMBL, he established the Cell Biology and Biophysics unit, an interdisciplinary team of cell biologists, geneticists, physicists, and imaging developers. He created the Tara Oceans program, which began as an around-the-world expedition to map the plankton ecosystem to a depth of 1000 meters, and directed the Tara Oceans Consortium until 2021. Karsenti is emeritus research director at the CNRS, visiting senior scientist at EMBL, and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the French Academy of Sciences, and the board of the Tara Oceans foundation.