★ 06/05/2023
“What makes you and me individual human beings is not a unique set of DNA but instead a unique organization of cells and their activities,” according to this revelatory study. Developmental biologist Martinez Arias’s first book for general readers pushes back against the notion that genes are “the architects of our bodies,” pointing to the case of triplets who shared a genetic mutation for a cleft lip that manifested differently in each sibling—the cleft was on the right side for one sibling, the middle for another, and the third had a cleft palate—despite all three having identical DNA. What actually explains how individuals develop are cells, which he contends are “master builders” that use the raw “materials” of DNA to construct organisms and have “the ability to learn, move, and count, to measure space and time.” To illustrate, he describes how during the early stages of embryonic development cells exchange chemical signals to symmetrically distribute eyes, ears, and arms, revealing an ability to organize geometrically that cannot be accounted for by DNA. Martinez Arias’s novel thesis invigorates, and the lucid scientific discussions will hold readers’ attention even through involved examinations of how cells respond to specific proteins. This is the perfect complement to Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Song of the Cell. Illus. (Aug.)
2023-05-01
A fascinating argument that what makes a human is “not a unique set of DNA but instead a unique organization of cells and their activities.”
Books that glorify DNA as the key to life are abundant, but they miss the point, according to this ingenious argument by Martinez Arias, a professor of systems bioengineering. The author emphasizes that every cell in our body contains identical DNA that forms our genes (about 25,000 in humans), which deliver instructions for the amino acids that make up the proteins that form our bodies. As Martinez Arias demonstrates, “DNA cannot send orders to cells to move right or left within your body or to place the heart and the liver on opposite sides of your thorax; nor can it measure the length of your arms or instruct the placement of your eyes symmetrically across the midline of your face.” Cells do that. From the perspective of a cell, DNA is a catalog with a vast array of building materials, from which the cell picks and chooses. The end result is a miracle called life, an entity that has no relation to any of its components. Just as a flock of birds or a city can’t be predicted from the list of its individual parts, a cell appears when the right combination of DNA does its work in a phenomenon called emergence. No scientist knows for sure, but most theorize on what happened after the first crude cells (“archaea”) appeared 4 billion years ago: Feasting on a mixture of nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, and carbon, and creating oxygen as a waste product, they swallowed up but did not digest aerobic bacteria. Over several billion years, they learned to turn sunlight into energy, survive in the open, oxygen-filled air, and—in the trillions—work together in the forms of plants and animals. Describing his own and others’ research, Martinez Arias makes a convincing case that cells, with assistance from DNA, gave rise to our species and all the others.
A rich, detailed exploration of the vitality of cells.
[A] revolutionary book on cell biology"—Nature
“Provocative… timely and needed. Highlights of the book include the many fascinating historical and evolutionary perspectives presented and Martinez Arias’s discussion of key experiments.” —Science Magazine
The Master Builder is a great read and an exciting introduction to developmental biology.—Mark Terry, The American Biology Teacher
"Martinez Arias’s novel thesis invigorates, and the lucid scientific discussions will hold readers’ attention even through involved examinations of how cells respond to specific proteins. This is the perfect complement to Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Song of the Cell."—Publishers Weekly (Starred)
“An ingenious argument… A rich, detailed exploration of the vitality of cells.”—Kirkus
“In The Master Builder, Alfonso Martinez Arias makes a timely, important and compelling case for why an understanding of living organisms must start with the cell. He offers a vision of life that shows it to be much more interesting and ingenious than any simplistic notion of genetic blueprints can provide.”—Philip Ball, author of Critical Mass and The Book of Minds
“The essence of science is that we never stop asking, do we see clearly, or have we fooled ourselves into certainty? In The Master Builder, we follow that question into the cell, where DNA is said to rule. What Alfonso Martinez Arias has found is much more interesting: cells themselves, which we inherited from a long line of ancestors stretching back to the earliest life, are at least as integral to creating who we are as the genes each carries. This book makes a new and stunning argument, not so much that we should put DNA in its place, but that we can see the grandeur of life as it truly is.”—Azra Raza, author of The First Cell
“What came first, the chicken or the egg? In The Master Builder, Alfonso Martinez Arias poses a different question: what drives biology, genes or cells? His surprising answer shines new light on the fascinating riddle of development and offers a majestic cell's-eye view of life itself.”—Lee Billings, author of Five Billion Years of Solitude
"DNA is often claimed to be 'the master molecule,' determining everything about us. DNA is now… in our cultural DNA. But in this masterful account, geneticist and developmental biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias shows that, on its own, DNA is powerless, inert. It needs a cell to work its wonders, and that cell is always interacting with the environment. This cell’s-eye view of life is powerful and striking, helping to reveal why DNA is not the ultimate determinant of ourselves. Identical twins are not identical down to their fingerprints – fingerprints, handedness and many other characteristics are not genetically determined. This clearly explained, beautiful book will change how you think about DNA, about how you came to be, and about life itself."—Matthew Cobb, author of As Gods
