UCL Symposium on the Origin of Life

First UCL Symposium on the Origin of Life | Friday 11 November 2011

Programme

The origin of life is probably the most exciting but also most elusive question in biology. University College London has recently started an initiative addressing a broad range of aspects concerning the origin of life, including the development of an 'Origin of Life Reactor'.

The First UCL Symposium on the Origin of Life provides a one-day platform for bringing together world-class scientists researching disciplines including planetary sciences, chemistry, molecular and microbiology, biophysics and evolution. International speakers are presenting their work alongside prominent researchers from UCL, and the organisers hope that this meeting will serve as inspiration for people working on this subject matter and a wider audience interested in the origin of life on earth. The scientific organisers are Dr Finn Werner and Dr Nick Lane.

Registration and attendance is FREE. All are welcome but please register quickly to guarantee a place.

We are grateful to the following groups for supporting this symposium:

• UCL Grand Challenges
• The Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology (ISMB)
• The SLMS Research Domains
• The Biochemical Society

	First UCL Symposium on the Origin of Life Friday 11 November 2011
	Introduction and Keynote Lecture Chair: Dr Finn Werner
09.00	'An Introduction to the UCL Origin of Life Initiative' Professor G. David Price, UCL
09.15	'Hyperthermophiles in the History of Life' Professor Karl Otto Stetter, University of Regensburg
	This keynote lecture is sponsored by the Biochemical Society
	Planetary Science and Biology Chair: Dr Lewis Dartnell
10.10	'The habitat of early life: the geological evidence' Professor Euan Nisbet, Royal Holloway University of London
10.45	'Tectonic Recycling and the Emergence of the Living Planet' Dr Graham Shields, UCL
11.10	Tea and Coffee Break
	Chemistry and Computation Chair: Dr Nick Lane
11.40	'A Plausible Prebiotic Path from One-Carbon Molecules to RNA' Professor Ernesto DiMauro, Sapienza University of Rome
12.15	'Origins of Life: Theory, Modelling and Simulation' Professor Peter Coveney, UCL
12.40	Lunch Break
	Biochemistry and Microbiology Chair: Dr Finn Werner
14.00	'Bringing Rocks to Life: The Early Evolution of Biological Energy Conservation' Professor William Martin, Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf
14.35	'The Origins of Coupling' Dr Nick Lane, UCL
15.00	'The Deep Phylogenetic Roots of Metabolic Enzymes Dr Wolfgang Nitschke, Institute of Microbiology of the Mediterranean, Marseille
15.35	'Linking Ancient Enzymes and Prebiotic Cycles with Synthetic Biology' Professor John Ward, UCL
16.00	Tea and Coffee Break
	Molecular Biology
	The RNA world – information processing in living systems Chair: Prof John Ward
16.30	'Thermal Solutions for Molecular Evolution' Dr Dieter Braun, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich
17.05	'Nucleic Acid Polymerisation - Molecular Mechanisms of Information Processing' Dr Finn Werner, UCL
	Round-up
17.40	'The UCL Origin of Life Reactor' Dr Nick Lane, UCL
18.00	Drinks Reception in the Grant Museum of Zoology The Grant Museum is the only remaining university zoological museum in London. It houses around 67,000 specimens, covering the whole Animal Kingdom.
Alkaline vent © Odra Noel 2011