Seeds of Life — John Taine

Dr Andrew Crane is a researcher at the Erickson Foundation for Electrical Research in Seattle, aided by "his technical assistant, the stocky Neils Bork". Bork has a drinking problem, and is difficult to deal with, none of which prevents his mysterious physical and mental transformation into a new being, with new abilities and a new name: Miguel De Soto!

"His best work shows an admirable imaginative flair. He loved to do things on a grand scale, sometimes conveying his effects with a distant evolutionary perspective characteristic of the Scientific Romance; and many of his novels end with catastrophes which overwhelm whole continents." --Science Fiction Encyclopedia