The Song of the Cell

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.