THE CATALYST

A Nobel Prize–winning scientist chronicles a major revolution in the field of biology.

In his first book, Cech, a professor of biochemistry, explains that DNA, the massive molecule inside the nucleus of every cell and the director of its operations, was deciphered in 1954, when he was a child, and preoccupied scientists for the remainder of the century. That included the author, but he was among many who realized that DNA was not the whole story. DNA’s job is to sit there, in the nucleus, storing information about how to run the cell. Reading out that information and doing something with it requires other molecules that move in and out of the nucleus. These are RNAs, a biochemical family that have fascinated geneticists across the world, whose discoveries since 2000 have led to 11 Nobel Prizes. In addition to being a working scientist, Cech is a lucid prose stylist, vividly communicating his and his colleagues’ excitement as they have unraveled RNA’s secrets. In the first half, the author delivers nuts-and-bolts details of the often yearslong breakthrough research. DNA function is fairly straightforward, but RNA works its magic through an extremely complex series of operations, the descriptions of which may baffle some general readers but reward diligent ones. Having set the scene, Cech devotes the second half of the book to showing how RNA “can improve and extend life beyond nature’s current limits.” He describes RNA oversight of DNA division and repair that underlie aging and how this could be engineered to prolong life. A genuine possibility, it is not yet a reality, but 20th-century advances have continued into the new millennium and are beginning to improve our daily lives as CRISPR gene editing and RNA-based drugs and vaccines enter the mainstream.

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