Ever since, and in fact long before, Richard Dawkins wrote The Selfish Gene, DNA has been at the center of modern biology, heralded as the blueprint of life. A raft of books have been published on the matter since, perhaps most recently Plomin’s Blueprint (or Christakis’s Blueprint).
 
Clearly it’s a metaphor we like, one that we usually think, in some fairly deep sense, describes who we are. Alfonso Martinez Arias disagrees. A developmental biologist and geneticist, he is, at the end of a very fruitful career in a field that’s often treated as something of a backwater, charging forward to argue that, public relations to the contrary, it is the cell that is the center of life.
 
A leading developmental biologist argues that cells, not DNA, hold the key to understanding life’s past and present   
What defines who we are? For decades, the answer has seemed obvious: our genes, the “blueprint of life.” In The Master Builder, biologist Alfonso Martinez Arias argues we’ve been missing the bigger picture. It’s not our genes that define who we are, but our cells. While genes are important, nothing in our DNA explains why the heart is on the left side of the body, how many fingers we have, or even how our cells manage to reproduce. Drawing on new research from his own lab and others, Martinez Arias reveals that we are composed of a thrillingly intricate, constantly moving symphony of cells. Both their long lineage—stretching back to the very first cell—and their intricate interactions within our bodies today make us who we are.  
Engaging and ambitious, The Master Builder will transform your understanding of our past, present, and future—as individuals and as a species. 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
Alfonso Martinez Arias is ICREA Research Professor in the department of systems bioengineering of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. The recipient of numerous awards, he is coauthor of the biology textbook Principles of Development, which was awarded the Royal Society of Biology book prize. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.