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The Banta Award 2006

Endless Forms Most Beautiful
By Sean Carroll
W.W. Norton & Company, 2005

About the Book

Dr. Carroll is at the forefront of the emerging field of evolutionary developmental biology, and Endless Forms Most Beautiful is one of the first works to clearly explain this complex and highly important new field to a general readership.

His highly personal account of the fusion of genetics, molecular biology, developmental biology, and evolutionary biology entices readers with his enthusiasm, wit, and wonder at the discovery of how highly similar tool kits of genes can control traits as diverse as people’s arms, lobster claws, and fish’s fins.

Carroll illustrates fascinating examples of natural phenomenon, from the development of eyes to butterfly wing spots to zebra stripes. 

Sean Carroll

Sean Carroll is Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Carroll's research has centered on those genes that govern body patterns and play major roles in the origin of new features.

Major discoveries from his lab have been featured in TIME , US News & World Report, The New York Times, Discover, and Natural History. He is the author of the book Endless Forms Most Beautiful : The New Science of Evo Devo (2005, W.W. Norton), which was a finalist for the 2005 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Science and Technology) and selected by USA Today and Discover as one of the top popular science books of 2005. He is also author of the forthcoming The Making of the Fittest (2006, W.W. Norton), co-author with Jen Grenier and Scott Weatherbee of the successful textbook From DNA to Diversity: Molecular Genetics and the Evolution of Animal Design (2nd ed; Blackwell Scientific), and has published more than 100 original scientific papers, including many in the leading journals Nature and Science.

In addition to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigatorship, Dr. Carroll has also received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Shaw Scientist Award of the Milwaukee Foundation, numerous honorary lectureships, and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was also chosen as one of America's most promising leaders under 40 by TIME Magazine in 1994.

Dr. Carroll earned his B.A. in Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, his Ph.D. in Immunology at Tufts Medical School, and carried out his postdoctoral research with Dr. Matthew Scott at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Dr. Carroll lives in Madison, Wisconsin with his wife Jamie and two sons.