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SUMMARY:Origins of Life Systems Chemistry - Professor John D Sutherland FR
 S (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology)
DTSTART:20221122T173000Z
DTEND:20221122T190000Z
UID:TALK192398@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Clare Kitcat
DESCRIPTION:How can chemistry morph into biology? This is the key question
  about the origin of life\, be it on our planet several billion years ago\
 , or elsewhere and so we need to think about chemistry in the context of p
 lanetary science if we want to know where we came from and whether or not 
 we are likely to be alone in the Universe.\n\nThe chemistry used by biolog
 y to fabricate its various components is by and large hopelessly inefficie
 nt in the absence of enzyme catalysts\, so we need to look for different c
 hemistry that can make the same componentry efficiently without enzymes. B
 ut where do we look?\n\nOne approach is to guess at the environment and th
 en use laboratory simulation to investigate its chemistry. The problem wit
 h this is the guesswork – there were presumably many different environme
 nts on early Earth and it is not obvious what chemistry they might be asso
 ciated with. An alternative approach is to explore chemistry in a pretty m
 uch unconstrained way to try and find out if all the molecules needed to k
 ick-start biology can be made under similar conditions from plausible feed
 stocks. If they can and the conditions required correspond to a particular
  environment on early Earth then that environment is strongly implicated a
 nd can further guide chemical investigations. In this lecture\, I will pre
 sent the results of this latter approach and demonstrate how hellish condi
 tions on Hadean-Archean Earth could have set the stage for the transition 
 from chemistry to biology.'
LOCATION:Yusuf Hamied Theatre\, Christ's College
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