Coming to Life: How Genes Drive Development
CHRISTIANE NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, winner of The Nobel Prize in Medicine, gives a concise and illustrative overview of genetics, evolution, and cellular processes as well as a discussion of current ethical issues in human biology.

Coming to Life is a remarkable journey through developmental biology that reveals miraculous processes in the microscopic world of cells. Through an accounting of groundbreaking discoveries, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard tells us many answers to historical and contemporary questions in science. For example, she brings us the newest knowledge about embryonic forms, explains the genetic mechanisms that influence adult development of all animals, and shares insights into the ethical standards society must uphold in the face of new scientific discoveries. As the author leads us from laboratory research to its applications in human beings, we also come to understand why children look like their parents, how an embryonic cell knows to become an eye rather than an eyelash, and other incredible influences that result in variety in life. Complete with her own hand-drawn illustrations, Coming to Life gives a rare opportunity to understand a Nobel Prize winner’s passion for science in concise, understandable language.

CHRISTIANE NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD was awarded The Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1995 for her discoveries in genetic research that led to a greater understanding of human biology and the prevention of human birth defects. Recognized around the world as one of the premier authorities in science, Dr. Nüsslein-Volhard has served for more than two decades as Director of Molecular Biology at the renowned Max-Planck-Institute in Germany. Her international honors include those reserved for only the upper echelons in science. Among them are the Albert Lasker Award (1991) and the Leibniz-Prize (1986). She has long been an advocate for students, and in particular for women, to enter into science careers.

PRAISE

The field of embryology used to be mostly descriptive and forbiddingly convoluted and therefore accessible only to specialists. However, spectacular recent advances have identified many key molecules and the mechanisms by which they drive development. Christiane Nüesslein-Volhard has played an important part in this revolution that places embryology to the forefront of contemporary biological research. Her short and very lucid text is a must read not only for the educated layperson but for scientists in general.
- Günter Blobel, Nobel Laureate

One of the great, unexpected, triumphs of modern molecular biology has been an understanding of how egg and sperm develop into a complex individual. Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard has distilled these recent advances into a book that any non-scientist can read. Her treatment builds on the same skills that have characterized her own Nobel award winning research career. She zeroes in on what is truly essential. The beautiful simplicity of the underlying mechanisms comes through in each topic.
- Eric Wieschaus, Nobel Laureate

Christiane Nüesslein-Volhard constructs an engaging, informative, and deeply satisfying historical and scientific account of how organisms are produced. The comprehensiveness of our understanding is exposed so clearly in this book that both the lay reader and the expert come away with new appreciation. COMING TO LIFE is an antidote to the massive factual explosion in science that can obscure general principles, and thus it should be required reading for anyone wishing to understand where we stand in modern biology.
- Marc Kirschner, founding chair,
Department of Systems Biology,
Harvard Medical School

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard is universally viewed as one of the great scientific pioneers of the 20th century. As this book demonstrates, she is also someone with unusual artistic sensibilities-using more than 50 of her hand-drawn figures and a gift for lucid explanation. It is unusual for a Nobel-Prize level scientist to write a book aimed at the intelligent layperson. It is even more unusual when that book succeeds in conveying the remarkable progress of biological science so clearly and concisely.
- Bruce Alberts,
former president, National Academy of Sciences (1993-2005)

The New York Times

special videotape interview  

Nature
"...rare insight into the development of organisms...the book is carefully produced and the illustrations are hand drawn and full of personal insight."

full article as PDF or link to full article

American Scientist
"...a compact, vibrant, lucid guide to modern developmental biology... a marvelous introductory resource..."

link to full article

Midwest Book Review
"...a ground breaking analysis of the microscopic progression of fertilization and embryonic research."

link to full article

Smithsonian Magazine
"...explains the genetic and cellular basis of animal development and explores the ethical implications of recent progress in genomics and biotechnology."

link to full article

More About the Author

Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard was born on Oct. 20, 1942, in Frankfurt, Germany. She was the second of five children.

She showed an early interest in science that led her to the University of Tübingen, Germany where she received her diploma in biochemistry in 1968 and her doctorate in 1972. She conducted her post-doctorate studies in Basel, Switzerland; Freiburg, Germany; the European Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Heidelberg, Germany (1978 – 1981); and the Friedrich-Miescher Laboratory in Tübingen, Germany (1981-1984.

Since 1985 she has served as Director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen and also leads its Genetics Department. Her current areas of research include genetic screens for mutations affecting early embryonic patterning in the fruit fly and the central nervous system of the zebrafish.

She has received numerous awards and prizes for her discovery of genes that guide the development of animal and man, among them the Leibniz-Prize (1986), the Albert Lasker Award (1991), and the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1995).

She is a member of the Royal Society (Great Britain), of the National Academy (USA) and the Order Pour le Mérite (Germany). In 2001 she joined the national ethical committee of the German federal government for the assessment of new developments in the life sciences and their influence on the individual and society. Dr. Nüsslein-Volhard is widely published in science journals around the world.

Author's website

Nobel Prize autobiography website