E. Coli in Motion Howard C. Berg AIP Press/Springer-Verlag, New York, 2004. $99.00 (133 pp.). ISBN 0-387-00888-8
The barriers between traditional disciplines in science are beginning to disappear. Howard Berg’s book E. coli in Motion presents a classic example of interdisciplinary research at the interface between biology and physics, from 17th-century microscopy through major breakthroughs in the 1970s and 1980s, and up to the present.
The book focuses on Escherichia coli , probably the best understood of all organisms and the source of much of our current knowledge about genetics and molecular biology. E. coli is just about the simplest organism that displays behavior complex enough to be worth studying. As Berg reveals, the behavioral repertoire of this tiny bacterium is remarkably wide for a bag of chemicals only a few microns long and about 2 × 10−15 kg. The story of how E. coli’s behavior can be understood at a molecular level is a fascinating one in itself. It is also a useful example for researchers in such areas as neuroscience and systems biology who are beginning to attempt to reach the same level of understanding of more complex living systems.
Berg’s book is well written and accessible yet densely packed with information and insight. In writing a concise and accurate account of the book’s purpose and contents, I’m unlikely to do a better job than Berg did in his three-page epilogue. As one of the founders of the modern field of bacterial chemotaxis and an eminent figure in the world of biological physics, the author writes with authority. He presents E. coli not as the faceless biochemical factory familiar to geneticists and molecular biologists, but as an individual swimming around looking for food, making decisions, and trying to get along in the world. Often he invites the reader to “step … into E. coli’s shoes,” and he shows obvious affection for his tiny protagonist and for the process of scientific discovery. Yet, at the same time, the book gives a rigorous and essentially complete account of the field while touching on several relevant topics in molecular biology, physics, and biophysics.
The story begins in 1676 with Antony van Leeuwenhoek’s fascination at what he saw swimming around under his microscope. It proceeds into the modern era with detailed measurements of the behavior of swimming bacteria, as populations and as individuals, and ends with an account of a marvel of biological nanotechnology: the bacterial flagellar motor, nature’s most sophisticated rotary electrical motor. Along the way, Berg reveals the molecular signaling network that allows E. coli to sense its environment and to navigate, propelled by its flagellar motor, using a strategy that has been optimized over evolutionary eons.
E. coli in Motion is slim, and its short chapters are further divided into sections that are seldom more than a few pages long. Its style is concise and to the point. It brings simplicity and clarity in plain English to subject matter that might otherwise be complicated and difficult. The book is not short of colorful illustrations. For example, Berg writes that “the neocortex in humans is a multilayered sheet of cells, about 1 millimeter (mm) thick, almost large enough to cover your desk top.” And although the book draws links to other fields where appropriate, it is never wordy and never strays far from the central theme. Most technical terms are explained for the layperson, and Berg describes basic biology and physics that might have been assumed knowledge in a purely academic text. The conflicting demands of thoroughness and brevity occasionally lead to bare statements of fact (but always accompanied by references) that might leave the layperson none the wiser. Berg makes little attempt to woo the reader, preferring to lay out the facts and let them speak for themselves. This may be a deliberate challenge, expressed in the last sentence of the book: “Curiosity is the driving force of basic science.”
E. coli in Motion should appeal to a variety of readers. It is an excellently written and entertaining story of modern interdisciplinary science, full of information and without hype or wild speculation. For the specialist, it is a mine of information. But perhaps most of all, the book is a case study for anyone interested in the field of quantitative life science. I most heartily recommend it to any mathematician, physical scientist, engineer, or biologist who wants to learn more about what physics and biology can do for each other.
