The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human

by Siddhartha Mukherjee

These, then, are among the first and most fundamental properties of the cell: autonomy, reproduction, and development.I For centuries, we regarded these fundamental features as impregnable. The interior anatomy of the cell and its internal homeostasis were, well, interior and internal—black boxes. Reproduction and development occurred within the womb—another black box. But as we deepen our understanding of the cell, we find ourselves able to pry open these black boxes and alter the fundamental properties of living units. Can we repair a cell’s subunit that happens to be defective in function—and if so, to what extent? Can we build a cell with a different kind of interior milieu, different substructures, and therefore different properties? And if we enable human reproduction outside the womb, as we have already, will such an artificially created embryo be open to genetic manipulation? What, then, are the permissible limits, and perils, of tampering with the first, fundamental properties of life?