Nick Lane is a biochemist and writer. He is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London, and the author of Life Ascending, which won the 2010 Royal Society Prize, and The Vital Question, of which Bill Gates wrote 'this biology book blew me away'.

His excellence in communicating science was recognised by the Royal Society Faraday Prize in 2016. His lab is attempting to recreate the chemical conditions that drove the origin of life on Earth.