Transformer

‘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,

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. His lab is attempting to recreate the chemical conditions that drove the origin of life on Earth.