Mukherjee begins this magnificent story in the late 1600s, when a distinguished English polymath, Robert Hooke, and an eccentric Dutch cloth-merchant, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked down their handmade microscopes. What they saw introduced a radical concept that swept through biology and medicine, touching virtually every aspect of the two sciences, and altering both forever. It was 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 christened them “cells.”
Nothing could be more fundamental to life than cells. The Song of the Cell tells the story of how scientists discovered cells, began to understand them, how to fix them when they went wrong, and are even using that knowledge to create new versions of humans by genetic engineering. With chapters such as An Invisible World, The Developing Cell, The Healing Cell, The Contemplating Cell, and The Selfish Cell, and laced with the author’s own experience as a researcher and a doctor, The Song of the Cell is both panoramic and intimate—a masterpiece on what it means to be human. Named a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and more!
1. Introduction and Chap 1: An Invisible World
2. Chapter 2: The Visible Cell and Chapter 3: The Universal Cell
3. Chapter 4: The Pathogenic Cell
4. Part 2 and Chapter 5: The Organized Cell & Chapter 6: The Dividing Cell
5. Chapter 7: The Tampered Cell & Chapter 8: The Developing Cell
9. Chapter 9: The Restless Cell and Chapter 10: The Healing Cell
10:Chapter 11: The Guardian Cell & Chapter 12: The Defending Cell
11.Chapter 13: The Discerning Cell & Chapter 14: The Tolerant Cell
12: Part Four: Knowledge and Chapter 15: The Pandemic & Chapter 16: The Citizen Cell
13: Chapter 17: The Contemplating Cell & Chapter 18: The Orchestrating Cell and Chapter 19: The Renewing Cell
14: Chapter 20: The Repairing Cell & Chapter 21: The Selfish Cell & Chapter 22: The Songs of the Cell and Epilogue
The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2023