Lane, Nick

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LANE, Nick

PERSONAL:

Male; married, wife's name, Ana. Education: Imperial College, University of London, B.Sc. (honors), 1988; Royal Free Hospital Medical School, University of London, Ph.D., 1995. Hobbies and other interests: Opera, folk music, classical music, fiddle, rock climbing, fossil hunting, mountaineering, literature, history, traveling, photography, cooking, wines, exploring Romanesque churches.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England. Agent—Caroline Dawnay, PFD, Drury House, 34-43 Russell St., London WC2B 5HA, England. E-mail—n.lane@rfc.ucl.ac.uk.

CAREER:

Science writer, biochemist, freelance communications consultant, musician, and researcher. MRC Clinical Research Centre, scientific officer, 1988-91; Oxford Clinical Communications, medical writer, 1995-96; Medi Cine International, London, England, senior writer/producer, 1996-99; Adelphi Medi Cine, London, strategic director, 1999-2002. University College, University of London, honorary senior research fellow, 1997—. Fiddle player with the London-based Celtic band Probably Not.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Isaac Holden Scholarship, Imperial College, University of London, 1985-88; Young Science Writer of the Year Award, Daily Telegraph, 1993; prize winner, New Scientist Millennial Science Essay Competition, 1994; Gold and Silver Awards, Prix Leonardo International Film Festival; Silver "Hugo," Intercom Chicago International Film Festival.

WRITINGS:

Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Erica E. Benson and Barry J. Fuller) Life in the Frozen State, CRC Press (Boca Raton, FL), 2004.

Contributor to publications such as Scientific American, New Scientist, Lancet, and British Medical Journal.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Power, Sex, and Suicide: Mitochondria and the Making of Man, for Oxford University Press.

SIDELIGHTS:

Without oxygen, humans would perish within minutes—but over a lifetime, oxygen metabolism drives the slow and ultimately deadly effects of aging. In Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World, biochemist and science writer Nick Lane presents "a piece of radical scientific polemic, nothing less than a total rethink of how life evolved between about 3.5 billion and 543 million years ago, and how that relates to the diseases we suffer from today," remarked Jerome Burne in Financial Times.

Only a small amount of oxygen existed in the primordial atmosphere of Earth some four billion years ago. When levels of oxygen began to rise sharply as the result of photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, other life forms adapted, using oxygen in respiration and spurring further evolutionary advances. Higher levels of atmospheric oxygen may account for the stunning diversity of life in the Cambrian period, and might have allowed creatures such as the Meganeura dragonfly, with its two-foot wingspan, to attain great size. Laurence A. Marschall, writing in Natural History, noted that Lane also suggests that "such high oxygen levels may have been lowered by a worldwide firestorm that ended the age of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago."

Oxygen has profound effects on the health and longevity of modern humans. Respiration and oxygen metabolism create free radicals, "reactive forms of the oxygen molecule that damage the proteins in our cells," explained Sanjida O'Connell in the London Times. Most free radicals are neutralized by natural antioxidants, "but a few slip through the net because our defenses are not perfect," O'Connell commented. The accumulated damage manifests in the familiar effects of aging. Lane, who conducted doctoral research on oxygen free radicals and metabolic function in organ transplants, examines the use of antioxidants such as vitamin C. Michael Peel, writing in Times Literary Supplement, stated that Lane's advice is simply "eat well and stay active rather than to seek solace in supposed chemical panaceas."

"Apart from the first chapter, which is cast in a style approaching the juvenile, the book is very well written and easy to read," commented Bernard M. Babior in the New England Journal of Medicine. Tim Radford, writing in the Manchester Guardian, commented that "Lane's chapters are dispatches from the frontiers of research into Earth and life history, but they contain nothing that will lose the patient reader, and much that will reward." A Kirkus Reviews critic commented that Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World is "provocative and complexly argued."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, July-August, 2003, Christian de Duve, review of Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World, pp. 364-365.

Financial Times, November 16, 2002, Jerome Burne, "Luca Gets a Breath of Fresh Air; Jerome Burne Is Impressed by a Highly Ambitious Piece of Scientific Polemic on the Life-and-Death Powers of Oxygen," p. 4.

Guardian (Manchester, England), November 23, 2002, Tim Radford, review of Oxygen, p. 12.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2003, review of Oxygen, p. 287.

Natural History, July-August, 2003, Laurence A. Marschall, review of Oxygen, pp. 58-62.

Nature, October 24, 2002, Thomas B. L. Kirkwood, "The Breath of Life and Death," p. 785.

New England Journal of Medicine, September 11, 2003, Bernard M. Babior, review of Oxygen, p. 1099.

Times (London, England), October 5, 2002, Sanjida O'Connell, review of Oxygen, p. 14.

Times Literary Supplement, January 31, 2003, Michael Peel, review of Oxygen, p. 33.

Wisconsin State Journal, April 13, 2003, review of Oxygen, G5.