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From One Cell

A Journey into Life's Origins and the Future of Medicine

Audiobook
73 of 73 copies available
73 of 73 copies available
Each of us began life as a single cell. From this humble origin, we embarked on a risky journey fraught with opportunities for disaster. Yet, amazingly, we reached our destination intact, emerging as dazzlingly complex, exquisitely engineered assemblages of trillions of cells. This metamorphosis constitutes one of nature's most spectacular yet commonplace magic tricks—and one of its most coveted secrets. In From One Cell, physician and researcher Ben Stanger offers a glimpse into what scientists are discovering about how life and the body take shape, and how these revelations stand to revolutionize medicine and the future of human health.
Stanger leads listeners on a gripping odyssey retracing this universal, yet unremembered, rite of passage. Through the eyes of the scientists unraveling development's riddles in experiments as painstaking as they are inventive, we confront fascinating puzzles: how does the plethora of different tissues that compose our bodies arise from a single source? How do cells know what they are meant to become—skin or bone, blood or muscle—when all carry the same set of genetic instructions? Once a cell starts developing down one path, can it change its mind, or is its destiny sealed? As Stanger shows us, the answers to these questions may at last empower us to solve some of our most persistently confounding medical challenges.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from June 26, 2023
      “How does an entire animal... arise from a single cell?” asks Stanger, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in his superb debut. Offering a thorough overview of how single-celled zygotes grow into complex organisms, Stanger profiles researchers whose experiments have contributed to the current scientific understanding of development, starting with English naturalist Robert Hooke’s discovery of cells in 1665 by examining cork under a magnifying glass. Also discussed are French biologists François Jacob and Jacques Monod’s tests in the late 1950s on E. coli bacteria, which found cells acquire specialized roles through the regulation of genes, and German embryologist Hilde Mangold’s 1921 grafts of newt embryos, which revealed that “cells ‘talk’ to one another during development.” Cell research, Stanger contends, holds promise for devising new medical treatments, including the ability to repair damaged nerves after spinal injuries or to disrupt cancer cells’ ability to communicate with and control other cells. The scientific explanations are enlightening and related with helpful analogies (Stanger suggests that each cell contains an organism’s full genome for the same reason actors work from complete scripts, instead of only their own lines), showcasing the surprising and impressive abilities of cells. Readers will marvel at this stimulating and comprehensive deep dive.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Noah James Butler guides listeners through what scientists know about life's origins and what remains a puzzle with excitement and a well-placed sense of awe. He narrates clearly at a steady pace, allowing those who may be unfamiliar with medical terminology time to absorb researcher Ben Stanger's findings. This pairs well with Stanger's accessible, energetic writing style. The result is an audiobook that is approachable for biology newcomers without sounding patronizing for more seasoned listeners. Butler's natural enthusiasm for Stanger's work and its implications for the future of medicine leave listeners with a new appreciation for the journey every cell takes as it makes up the human body. C.J.C. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

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