The Master Builder

How the New Science of the Cell Is Rewriting the Story of Life

By: Alfonso Martinez Arias

Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong

A leading developmental biologist argues that cells, not DNA, hold the key to understanding history, present, and future of life.

What defines who we are?

For decades, the biological answer has been our genes. In The Master Builder, leading biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias breaks with decades of scientific and popular tradition to make a bold argument: what defines us is our cells. Drawing on new research from his lab and others, Martinez Arias reveals that we are composed of a thrillingly complex, constantly rearranging symphony of cells that know how to count, feel, and ultimately give form to our bodies. While DNA is important, Richard Dawkins's vision of the selfish gene that controls everything is not a good description of how biology actually works. As Martinez Arias shows, nothing in your genes explains why your heart is on the left side of your body, why you have five fingers and not ten, or why genetically identical twins have different sets of fingerprints and why it's possible for a mother to apparently share no DNA with the children to whom she gave birth! At the heart of it all is not simply gee-whiz science, but a powerful new conception of the essence of life.

Our identities are shaped not simply by our genes, but by the interconnections between all our cells, working as a sort of symphony-cooperative, and creating something greater than its parts could on their own-and the unbroken lineage of cells that connects us to the first fertilized egg from which we developed - and in turn, back through the billions of years of our planet's history, to the very first cell in the history of all life on Earth.

A sweeping revision of both the present and history of life, The Master Builder puts forward a new paradigm for understanding biology, one rooted in cellular cooperation, not selfish genes. Engaging and ambitious, it will transform our understanding of where we come from, what shapes us, and where we are going, as individuals, a species, and the community of life itself.

©2023 Alfonso Martinez Arias (P)2023 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

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)

Never thought that cell is so amazing.

This audiobook is exceptionally interesting. It explores the fascinating and intriguing aspects of biology as a science that I never knew, e.g. how and when live cell has obtained methahondria. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about their amazing body.