Addy Pross received a Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from Sydney University in 1970. He is currently a Professor of Chemistry at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and a recognized authority in the area of chemical reactivity to which he contributed with the highly cited and acclaimed Pross-Shaik model of chemical reactivity. He has held visiting positions in many universities word-wide, including the University of Lund, Stanford University, Rutgers University, University of California at Irvine, University of Padova, the Australian National University Canberra, and Sydney University. He has served on the editorial board of chemical and biological journals and a variety of academic management boards. In recent years he has directed his attention to the biological arena where he has applied his expertise in chemical reactivity to the Origin of Life problem and the broader question of the problematic chemistry-biology interface.

"I would recommend this book for readers who would like a clear introduction to the fundamental chemical concepts that must have been part of the story of the origin of life." --Reports of the National Center for Science Education

"Pross does an excellent job of succinctly conveying the difficulty in crafting an unambiguous general definition of life and provides a road map to much of the work on the origin of life done by chemists in the past 50 years. The book is worth the read for these discussions alone." --Chemical Heritage