The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

Description

From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, about the fundamental unit of life. Rich with Mukherjee's revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human From the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and The Gene, a #1 New York Times bestseller, comes his most spectacular book yet, about the fundamental unit of life. Rich with Mukherjee's revelatory and exhilarating stories of scientists, doctors, and the patients whose lives may be saved by their work, The Song of the Cell is the third book in this extraordinary writer's exploration of what it means to be human. In the late 1600s, a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek look down their hand-made microscopes. What they see introduces a radical concept that sweeps through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It is the fact that complex living organisms are assemblages of tiny, self-contained, self-regulating units. Our organs, our physiology, our selves - hearts, blood, brains - are built from these compartments. Hooke christens them "cells". The discovery of cells -and the reframing of the human body as a cellular ecosystem - announced the birth of a new kind of medicine based on the therapeutic manipulations of cells. A hip fracture, a cardiac arrest, Alzheimer's dementia, AIDS, pneumonia, lung cancer, kidney failure, arthritis, COVID pneumonia - all could be re-conceived as the results of cells, or systems of cells, functioning abnormally. And all could be perceived as loci of cellular therapies. In The Song of the Cell, Mukherjee tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, and are now using that knowledge to create new humans. He seduces readers with writing so vivid, lucid and suspenseful that complex science becomes thrilling. Told in six parts, laced with Mukherjee's own experience as a researcher, a doctor, and a prolific reader, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate - a masterpiece.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher, a stem cell biologist and a cancer geneticist. He is the author of The Laws of Medicine and The Emperor of All Maladies- A Biography of Cancer, which won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction and the Guardian First Book Award. Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School. His laboratory has identified genes that regulate stem cells, and his team is internationally recognized for its discovery of skeletal stem cells and genetic alterations in blood cancers. He has published work in Nature, Cell, Neuron, The New England Journal of Medicine, the New York Times and several other magazine and journals. He lives with his family in New York City.

Brilliant ... medical magic ... written with compassionate warmth and humour * Steven Poole, Daily Telegraph * Wonderfully ambitious... Cell biology is complex and as big a topic as life itself; I'm not sure a writer could cover it better * The Times * If you are not already in awe of biology, The Song of the Cell might get you there. It is a masterclass * Guardian * One of the most admired doctors in the world * The Times * Brilliant * The Times * Part mystery, part adventure story, The Song of the Cell is an irresistible foray into the frontiers of medical science a reminder of the power of human ingenuity that is likely to leave readers both enlightened and hopeful. * Jennifer Egan, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the Goon Squad * Some of the writing in The Song of the Cell is so lovely that you can get caught up in its music * New York Times * Audacious...mesmerizing...reliably engaging... Mukherjee enthusiastically instructs and... delights - all the while hustling us across a preposterously vast and intricate landscape * Wall Street Journal * Deeply researched, The Song of the Cell is an extraordinary journey through the history of discovery to the most innovative cellular medicine practiced today and the promise of what lies ahead. * Paul Nurse, Nobel Laureate Physiology or Medicine 2001 * For anyone who wants to understand the building blocks of their own bodies - which everyone surely should - this is an informative and entertaining introduction * Economist * An extraordinarily gifted storyteller... The author's ideas about the near future of medicine are both convincing and inspiring. This is another winner from Mukherjee. * Publishers Weekly, *Starred Review* * A lively, personal, detailed, often moving account of the cell in medical history and its promise in the present * Heromag * A lively, thought-provoking book... Mukherjee comes across not only as a brilliant researcher but also as a deeply empathetic human being * Literary Review * A masterclass in cell function that will leave you in awe of biology * Suzanne O'Sullivan, Guardian * Vast, important ... optimistic * Mail on Sunday * A passionate, expert guide ... Mukherjee's ambition has once again paid off, creating an encyclopaedic exploration of how we got to this point - and sketching out the questions we must ask about the future * Financial Times * A confident, timely - and most importantly, biologically precise - exploration of what it means to be human * Guardian * A confident, timely - and most importantly, biologically precise - exploration of what it means to be human * Observer * A remarkable achievement - a fascinating and highly readable crash course on the complexities of cellular physiology and of life itself * New Statesman * This complex portrait illuminates cells' roles in immunity, reproduction, sentience, cognition, repair and rejuvenation * Nature *