"Entertaining and prescient…Hockfield demonstrates how nature’s molecular riches may be leveraged to provide potential solutions to some of humanity’s existential challenges." —Adrian Woolfson, Science
A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies that radically reshaped the world: radios, televisions, aircraft, computers, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. Today, a new technological convergence—of biology and engineering—promises to create the tools necessary to tackle the threats we now face, including climate change, drought, famine, and disease
World-renowned neuroscientist and academic leader Susan Hockfield describes the most exciting new developments and the scientists and engineers who helped to create them. Virus-built batteries. Cancer-detecting nanoparticles. Computer-engineered crops. Together, they highlight the promise of the technology revolution of the twenty-first century to overcome some of the greatest humanitarian, medical, and environmental challenges of our time.
Susan Hockfield, Ph.D., president emerita and professor of neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the first woman and first life scientist to lead MIT. She is a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Prologue ix
1 Where the Future Comes From 1
2 Can Biology Build a Better Battery? 19
3 Water, Water Everywhere 49
4 Cancer-Fighting Nanoparticles 73
5 Amplifying the Brain 91
6 Feeding the World 117
7 Cheating Malthus, Once Again: Making Convergence Happen Faster 145
