Prof Lane’s research is on the way that energy flow has shaped evolution over 4 billion years, using a mixture of theoretical and experimental work to address the origin of life, the evolution of complex cells and downright peculiar behaviour such as sex.
Nick’s most recent book, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death (Profile/Norton 2022) explores the elusive chemical logic of life. Nick shows that the flux of energy and matter brings the Earth to life and our own lives to an end, along the way explaining the emergence of genetic information and even consciousness. Revolving around the Krebs cycle, an amazing conflicted merry-go round of energy and matter at the heart of life, the book lays bare the stories of the flawed geniuses who pioneered our understanding of biochemistry, uniting the story of our planet with the story of our cells, from photosynthesis to ageing and cancer.