NEW DEALS

NEW DEALS

VIRTUAL YOU How to Build Your Digital Twin in Six Steps – and Revolutionise Healthcare and Medicine PETER COVENEY & ROGER HIGHFIELD

A bold manifesto based on new thinking that marks the return of the successful writing partnership behind the two influential bestsellers THE ARROW OF TIME: A Voyage to Solve Time’s Greatest Mystery and FRONTIERS OF COMPLEXITY: The Search for Order in a Chaotic World.

A new kind of human is under development: your digital twin. Although confined to a virtual world, this digital copy of yourself will greatly influence your life in the real world as your personal crashtest dummy, guinea pig and drug-trial volunteer all rolled into one.

Virtual heart cells are already helping to replace animals in testing cardiac medicines. Virtual drug trials using supercomputers are enabling doctors to work out which treatments work best for an individual patient. Digital twins are being used by surgeons in planning operations to treat brain aneurisms, by medical device companies when designing the next generation of implant and by pharmaceutical companies for ensuring particles of an inhaled drug reach their target. And populations of digital twins are being used to understand the social, economic and environmental factors that affect health.

In VIRTUAL YOU, Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield provide the first popular account of revolutionary efforts to build virtual cells, organs, whole bodies and populations. As well as heralding the dawn of truly personalized medicine, predicting, say, what a change in diet and lifestyle could do to an individual’s health and lifespan, our digital doppelgängers will raise new ethical and philosophical dilemmas and make us think anew about what it means to be ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’ – and in doing so force us to reconsider many aspects of life that we take for granted.

In taking readers on this ultimate voyage of self-discovery, VIRTUAL YOU provides a glimpse of the remarkable power of next-generation medicine while touching on some of the deepest problems in biology, mathematics and computing.

PETER COVENEY holds professorships at University College London (where he is director of the Centre for Computational Science), University of Amsterdam and Yale University School of Medicine. VIRTUAL YOU draws on his lead role in a major EU project to simulate the human body – and search for drugs to treat covid-19 and more – using some of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, as well as his research into the frontiers of computation and modelling.

ROGER HIGHFIELD is the science director of the UK’s Science Museum Group, which consists of five museums visited by more than five million people annually. He is also a member of the Medical Research Council and a visiting professor of public engagement at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, and the Department of Chemistry, University College London. Together with Peter, he has organized major public events on quantum computing and virtual humans and written papers on the limitations of big data without big theory.

Agent: Peter Tallack

Publisher: Princeton University Press Delivery: July 2021 Publication: Autumn 2022 Status: Proposal Length: 75,000 words

NEW DEALS

HEADLINE SCIENCE What the Biggest Science Stories Tell Us About How the World of Science and News Really Works FIONA FOX

‘Depending on whom you ask, Fiona Fox is either saving science journalism or destroying it’.

Thus wrote Nature in 2013 about the charismatic and sometimes combative head of Britain's Science Media Centre. Fox was appointed to set up the centre in 2002 after scientists reeling from media frenzies about mad-cow disease, the MMR vaccine and genetically modified crops realized they would have to emerge from their ivory towers and join the fray.

Seventeen years later, she is still there, having enjoyed a ringside seat on some of the biggest, most contentious stories in science –a period during which scientists finally found their voice and press coverage and the public perception of science improved dramatically. Since then her science PR model has spread around the world, with similar centres now established in several other countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany and the United States.

In HEADLINE SCIENCE, Fox recounts her anecdotes, revelations, opinions and perspectives from her unique vantage point at the heart of some of the most fascinating science stories of the past two decades – including, most recently, her central role in the UK’s covid-19 news coverage. The book aims to have wide appeal, and not just to those in science. It should be a compelling, enjoyable and informative read for anyone interested in how science interacts with the public as well as for those who devour books about news and journalism; the ever-growing global community of science press officers and science communicators; students taking courses in science communication and science journalism; science journalists and science writers; and general readers who love candid political diaries and memoirs, or popular books that lift the lid on topical scientific issues.

Indeed, at a time when public interest in health matters is at an all-time high, these gripping dispatches from the frontiers of science look set to become essential reading for us all.

FIONA FOX trained as a journalist before starting a career in media relations and is now director of the trailblazing Science Media Centre in London. She has an OBE for her services to science, was the only representative of science to appear in person at the 2011/12 Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, and has a string of honorary fellowships from the UK’s most eminent scientific societies. She is well known in science and journalism circles and is regularly asked to speak at debates and conferences about science and the news.

Agent: Peter Tallack

Publisher: Elliott & Thompson Delivery: 5 January 2021 Publication: Autumn 2021 Length: 70,000 words

All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Elliott & Thompson)

NEW DEALS

WHY WE WENT EXTINCT An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the Species that Just Didn’t Make It TADAAKI IMAIZUMI & TAKASHI MARUYAMA

Since life first arose on Earth, 99.9 per cent of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct.

If your species happens to be alive right now – never mind just you specifically! – you are already among the very lucky. WHY WE WENT EXTINCT is an illustrated encyclopaedia of the animals that weren’t as lucky, that wound up on Darwin’s bad side through poor physical traits or unfortunate timing, or simply had the massive misfortune to run up against the rise of human civilization.

Every spread in the book consists of an illustration of the departed animal in question, various scientific facts about it (era, size, habitat, diet and so on) and a monologue from the animal itself about why it went extinct. Readers learn about Platybelodon, an elephant ancestor whose jaw was too heavy to survive; Cameroceras, a cephalopod whose body was too straight to survive; the Laughing Owl, who went extinct because it laughed too loud; and a whole host of other mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians and fish that just didn’t make it. These are sad stories, of course, but the endearing illustrations and charming voices of the animals bring them back to life, if only briefly, to teach readers about their lives and times, and to give us all a deeper appreciation of life on Earth (especially as we face human-caused climate change, a driver of extinction that the book addresses in full as well). And thankfully, there is a final chapter – ‘You Would Think We’re Extinct, But We’re Not!’ – that highlights some of the unexpected survival stories such as the pygmy hippopotamus, which by all accounts doesn’t seem well-equipped by Darwinian standards but has basically survived by hiding in the forest.

WHY WE WENT EXTINCT has become a huge phenomenon in Japan since it was first published in 2018, selling well over half a million copies. And with the recent wave of interest in palaeontology seen in books such as Steve Brusatte’s The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, along with the proven appeal of whimsically illustrated nonfiction in the vein of Rachel Ignotofsky’s The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth, WHY WE WENT EXTINCT is poised for breakout success around the globe.

TADAAKI IMAIZUMI graduated from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, and studied mammal taxonomy and ecology at the National Science Museum of Japan. He participated in the Ministry of Education’s International Biological Project and the Ministry of Environment’s ecological survey of the Iriomote wildcat. After working as an animal-science educator at Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, he is now councillor at the Tokyo Zoo Association. He likes cheetahs and leopards because they are independent, quiet, and are strict parents.

TAKASHI MARUYAMA is a zoology writer and creator of illustrated encyclopaedias. After working for Nature Pro Editorial Office, he engaged in the research of hyraxes in the Negev desert in Israel. His favourite animal is the aardvark because it is the only remaining living species of the order Tubulidentata.

Agent: Jeff Shreve

Publisher: To be confirmed Publication: Autumn 2021 Length: 350 pages

All rights available excluding US & Canada (TBC) – Japan, China and rest of East Asia reserved to the Japanese publisher (Diamond)

NEW DEALS

THE RACE FOR THE COVID-19 VACCINE JOHN RHODES

A concise history of vaccination and definitive overview of the science behind the covid-19 vaccines in development, by a vaccinediscovery expert and former collaborator with leading White House coronavirus advisor Anthony Fauci.

It is widely accepted that a vaccine is the only way to end the covid-19 pandemic.

In this book, John Rhodes, an international expert in immunology and vaccine discovery, unravels the mysteries of how vaccines against coronavirus will be designed, tested and produced at scale by public health services around the world, setting this against the colourful backdrop of the story of immunology. Most importantly, he explains in everyday language just how a vaccine will work.

As Rhodes says, no new discoveries are necessary to build a vaccine. No new concepts will be called on. We won’t depend on some unanticipated breakthrough and we won’t need to advance the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Today the complex workings of the immune system are well understood. The tools needed by biomedical scientists are ready and waiting to be used and no new technologies will be required to produce the vaccine at large scale.

Good progress has already been made in research laboratories around the world: according to the World Health Organization, the number of coronavirus vaccine projects currently underway is over 169, with some 26 already in human trials.

But how long will it take? What must be done to ensure the vaccine is safe and effective? How do we produce the billions of doses we’ll need to vaccinate enough people around the world? How much protection would a vaccine offer and for how long? And then there is the question of how we maintain the public’s confidence in vaccines in the face of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience.

By setting this ongoing story in the wider context of the history of vaccination and the global war against infectious disease, Rhodes provides an authoritative yet readable primer with a much longer shelf-life than many of the other titles being rushed out on the coronavirus pandemic.

JOHN RHODES is an international expert in immunology and vaccine discovery. He has held research fellowships at the National Institutes of Health in the United States and at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and from 2001 to 2007 was director of strategy in immunology at GlaxoSmithKline, a leading multinational healthcare company. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, has served on UK government international vaccine missions and has published numerous articles in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Science and the Lancet. His first popular book THE END OF PLAGUES: The Global Battle Against Infectious Disease was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013. He lives and works in Sussex, UK.

Agent: Peter Tallack

Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: Spring 2021 Status: Draft manuscript Length: 40,000–50,000 words

All rights available excluding World English Language (University of Chicago Press)

FORTHCOMING TITLES

EXPONENTIAL Shaping the World in an Age of Accelerating Change AZEEM AZHAR

Praise for Azeem Azhar’s newsletter ‘Exponential View’

‘Exponential View’ is a must-read and always provides a thoughtful perspective on our exponential world – Daniel Ek, Founder, Spotify

I love the way ‘Exponential View’ carefully brings together and celebrates so many different perspectives, and I look forward to being challenged and inspired by it every week – Mustafa Suleyman, Co-founder, DeepMind

A refreshing lens on our near future from an influential tech entrepreneur, investor, advisor and communicator.

At some point between 2016 and 2017, technology took over the public space. Mutterings about the application of new dark digital arts – the nefarious manipulation of our social media against us, the hacking of our very democracies – crescendoed. Computers got better at many things – playing games, translating between languages, describing what is in a picture – and we began to talk about AI taking our jobs, driving our cars and supplementing nearly all our human capabilities. Tech giants – Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix – rose to impressive, then disturbing, new heights.

At the time, Azeem Azhar had just sold PeerIndex, one of the startups he founded, and he went from being an overworked founder to a senior executive with a bit of time and space to look around. And he noticed something: across today’s disparate storylines – the political rifts, the rise of tech leviathans towering over civic life, the tsunami of AI development – there was a pattern. In short, a gap had opened between accelerating technological capability and incremental social adaptation, between everyday culture and the bubble of tech culture. Azeem dubbed this the ‘exponential gap’, and since then he has sought to find a way to bridge these two cultures, to unite technologists and humanists in a collective effort to shape our world for the better. Channelling the grand scope of Harari and Tegmark, the rigour of Zuboff and Mazzucato, and the entrepreneurial attitude of Brynjolfsson and McAfee, EXPONENTIAL is that bridge – across cultures, across the exponential gap – that offers readers a clear vista of our future.

AZEEM AZHAR writes ‘Exponential View’, a widely acclaimed newsletter with over 55,000 subscribers. It deals with the impact of AI and exponential technologies on society and the economy and is accompanied by his highly lauded podcast, distributed by Harvard Business Review. Following an MA in politics, philosophy and economics from the University of Oxford, he started his career as a journalist with the Guardian and the Economist before founding PeerIndex, and is now a trusted advisor to firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, a venture partner at Kindred Capital, a board member of the Ada Lovelace Foundation and a regular international keynote speaker on topics such as the impact of AI, ethics and technology, exponential technologies and the human dimensions of technology.

Agent: Jeff Shreve

Publisher: Random House Business (UK) Delivery: October 2020 Publication: Autumn 2021 Status: Proposal and sample writing Length: 90,000–100,000 words

All rights available excluding UK & Commonwealth (Random House Business)