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The renowned Nobel Prize-winning scientist's elegant and concise explanation of the fundamental ideas in biology and their uses today.Hailed by Philip Pullman as "a great communicator" who is also "as distinguished a scientist as there could be," Paul Nurse writes with delight at life's richness and a sense of the urgent role of biology in our time. With What Is Life? he delivers a brief but powerful work of popular science in the vein of Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons in Physics.Nurse takes readers on a wondrous journey through five fundamental biological ideas -- the Cell, the Gene, Evolution by Natural Selection, Life as Chemistry, and Life as Information -- introducing the scientists who made the most important advances and taking us into his own lab to give us a sense of the thrill of scientific discovery.



About the Author

Paul Nurse

Paul Maxime Nurse is an English geneticist, former President of the Royal Society and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the division of cells in the cell cycle. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Nurse has received numerous awards and honours. He was elected an EMBO Member in 1987 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1989 and the Founder Member of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998. In 1995, he was awarded the Pezcoller-AACR International Award. He received a Royal Medal and became a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1998. Nurse was knighted in 1999. He was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur and the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2002. He was also awarded the Copley Medal in 2005. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences - one of the top honours - in April 2006. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering. Nurse is the 2007 recipient of the Hope Funds Award of Excellence in Basic Research. He is a Freeman of the London Borough of Harrow. In 2013, he was awarded the Albert Einstein World Award of Science by the World Cultural Council. In 2015, he was elected a foreign academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and won the 10th annual Henry G. Friesen International Prize in Health Research, in Ottawa, Canada. He was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to science and medicine in the UK and abroad. In November 2022 he was appointed to the Order of Merit.Nurse has received over 60 Honorary Degrees and Fellowships, including from the University of Bath in 2002, the University of Oxford in 2003, the University of Cambridge in 2003, the University of Kent in 2012, the University of Warwick (Doctor of Science) the University of Worcester (Doctor of Science) in 2013, City, University of London(Doctor of Science) in 2014 and McGill University (Doctor of Science) in 2017. In 2020 he was awarded an honorary degree from the Mendel University Brno in the Czech Republic.He was also appointed an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (HonFREng) in 2012 and Honorary Fellow of the British Association (HonFBA) in 2013. In July 2016 it was announced that he will be the next Chancellor of the University of Bristol. He is an Honorary Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers



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