Born in New York City, Cane graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1966.

Cane's research interests have been the elucidation of the chemistry, mechanistic enzymology, and molecular genetics of two main biosynthetic transformations, including terpenoid metabolism and polyketide antibiotic biosynthesis.

In this work, he has collaborated with Prof. David W. Christianson at the University of Pennsylvania and Prof. Haruo Ikeda of the Kitasato Institute of Life Sciences in Tokyo.

They have been concentrated on determination of the biochemical basis for the complex stereochemical control of polyketide natural products.

The letters are filled with Lawrence Cane's politically sophisticated observations and eyewitness accounts of some of the most dramatic events in history: segregated military units in an Army that was fighting against racism and oppression, the D-Day landings in Normandy, the liberation of France and Belgium, the Battle of the Bulge, the encounter with the Germans, the early stages of the occupation of Germany, and the horrors of the discovery of the concentration camps.