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Lee Lorenzen and the Book That Changed the Direction of His Research
07 Oct 2026
A research career can change because of a new job, a failed experiment, or an unexpected result. Sometimes the turning point is much smaller. It can be one book sitting on a library shelf.
That happened to Lee Lorenzen. The founder and CEO of Cluster Solutions has a background in biology, pharmacology, and biomedical consulting. He began his career teaching biology and working in pharmacology research before spending decades investigating water structure and cellular hydration. His work eventually produced multiple U.S. patents related to clustered water technology.
One pivotal moment in that journey happened during a visit to the UCLA library. Lorenzen recalls walking down an aisle and noticing a small red book by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi. Reading it gave him a new framework for thinking about water and biological systems.
“I wasn't walking into the library expecting to find the direction of my career,” Lorenzen says. “I saw this little red book sticking out from the shelf. Once I started reading Szent-Györgyi's ideas about biology at the molecular level, questions I had been carrying started to connect.”
One Book Can Change the Question
The work Lorenzen encountered was tied to Szent-Györgyi's thinking about biology below the conventional molecular scale.
Historical records identify Introduction to a Submolecular Biology as a 135-page book published by Academic Press in 1960. Its subjects included the energy cycle of life, electronic interactions between biological molecules, charge transfer, ATP, and remarks on water and ions.
That publication date is worth clarifying because Lorenzen's account describes finding a book “written in 1962.” Szent-Györgyi was also the subject of the 604-page Horizons in Biochemistry: Albert Szent-Györgyi Dedicatory Volume, published in 1962. The book most closely matching Lorenzen's description of the scientific ideas, however, appears to be the 1960 Introduction to a Submolecular Biology.
The exact date matters less to Lorenzen's career story than what happened after he encountered the material.
He did not treat the book as a final answer. He treated it as a new starting point.
“What caught my attention was that somebody with Szent-Györgyi's background was willing to ask questions below the level where biology was usually discussed,” he says. “I didn't finish the book and think, ‘Now I know the answer.’ I thought, ‘I need to look at this problem differently.’”
That distinction matters for any researcher.
Szent-Györgyi Was No Ordinary Author
Finding an unfamiliar theory in a library is one thing. Finding it in the work of a Nobel laureate can make a young researcher pay closer attention.
Albert Szent-Györgyi was a Hungarian biochemist who received the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning biological combustion processes, particularly vitamin C and fumaric acid catalysis.
His later interests extended into bioenergetics and the electronic properties of biological molecules. His 1960 book focused specifically on electronic interactions, energy transfer, and biological processes at the submolecular level.
These ideas also influenced wider scientific discussion. Historical accounts note growing research interest in the electronic properties of proteins in the late 1950s, with Szent-Györgyi's books helping draw attention to the subject.
For Lorenzen, the encounter came at the right moment.
He had already worked in biology and pharmacology. His wife's serious illness had pushed him to ask new questions about health and biological function. Szent-Györgyi's work gave him another scientific lens through which to examine those questions.
“The timing mattered,” Lorenzen says. “If I had picked up that book years earlier, I might have read it and put it back. I was already searching for another way to understand what I was seeing.”
A Source Should Open Doors, Not Close Them
This offers a useful lesson for researchers, founders, and students.
A powerful source does not have to provide a complete roadmap.
Sometimes its value is that it changes the researcher's question.
That can redirect years of work.
After encountering Szent-Györgyi's ideas, Lorenzen continued investigating water behavior and biological systems. His research eventually took him beyond libraries and laboratories. He studied reports surrounding natural springs, including Lourdes in France, and looked for patterns that might generate testable questions about water structure.
Those observations became part of a much longer research process.
His advice to younger researchers is to resist confusing inspiration with proof.
“One book can give you a hypothesis, but it can't do your experiments for you,” he says. “I took ideas from what I read and then spent years asking what could actually be tested, repeated, and developed.”
That approach matters whenever researchers encounter ideas outside established thinking.
An interesting source should create questions. Evidence still has to determine the answers.
Research Careers Rarely Follow a Straight Line
Lorenzen's experience also challenges the tidy version of scientific careers.
Researchers do not always choose a specialty at 22 and follow a perfect path for the next 40 years.
Lorenzen began as a Graduate Instructor in Biology at Chapman College in 1974. He then worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine from 1974 to 1976. Biomedical consulting followed from 1976 until 1989, when he founded Cluster Solutions.
The questions around water remained.
That persistence eventually contributed to patents including U.S. Patents 5,711,950 and 6,033,678.
A chance encounter in a library had become one piece of a research journey spanning decades.
“I still remember the physical book because the moment was so specific,” Lorenzen says. “It wasn't a conference presentation or somebody telling me what field to enter. I noticed a book on a shelf, read it, and realized there was another set of questions I needed to investigate.”
Researchers Should Read Outside Their Immediate Lane
Modern researchers have access to more papers and information than any previous generation. More information does not automatically create better ideas.
Researchers still have to notice the unusual source.
Lorenzen recommends reading beyond the narrow topic of a current project. A biologist may find a useful idea in physics. A chemist may notice something in medicine. An engineer may discover that an old biology paper changes how a technical problem looks.
The goal is not to collect impressive references. It is to find connections worth testing.
Szent-Györgyi's work itself crossed boundaries between biochemistry, energy, electronic interactions, and the nature of living systems. Introduction to a Submolecular Biology included topics ranging from charge transfer to ATP and water.
That breadth was part of what made the encounter useful.
The Right Book Doesn't Give You the Ending
The most interesting part of Lorenzen's library story is not that one book contained everything he needed.
It didn't.
The book changed what he was looking for.
That is often how useful research sources work. They expose a gap. They connect two observations. They make an old assumption look less certain. The researcher takes it from there.
More than three decades after founding his company, Lorenzen is still working on questions connected to water structure and cellular behavior.
His advice for researchers is simple: pay attention when a source changes the way you frame a problem.
“Don't expect the book to hand you your conclusion,” he says. “The valuable book is sometimes the one that leaves you with a question you can't stop thinking about.”
For Lorenzen, one small book on a UCLA library shelf did exactly that.
