Cells

A fascinating journey through the origins and evolution of life, from an award-winning biologist and artist

“A vibrant exploration of the history of life.”―Kirkus Reviews

“Magnificent . . . I am amazed by the scope of Cells.”―Tim Hunt, PhD, Nobel Prize–winning biochemist

In the 19th century, biologists established that all living organisms―from animals and plants to algae and fungi―are composed of cells. Around the same time, Charles Darwin introduced his theory of evolution, proposing that all life on Earth shares a common origin. Today, the scientific community has defined that origin as LUCA: the last universal common ancestor.

This is the story of how LUCA―the ancestral cell―emerged billions of years ago and gave rise to the vast diversity of life-forms we see today. Blending art with science, biologist Christian Sardet explores the tiny structures and life-giving functions of DNA, RNA, and proteins; examines the mysteries of reproduction, aging, and death; and offers a novel answer to the immortal question, “What is life?”

Life is a social network of cells.

260 color photos and illustrations throughout

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.