Research on the Origin of Life takes place in a wide variety of disciplines ranging from Astronomy, Astrochemistry, and Prebiotic Chemistry via in vitro Evolution and Microbial Geobiology, to Molecular Phylogenetics and Comparative Genomics. The Origin of Life GRC conferences provide an excellent opportunity for scientist new to this area of interdisciplinary research to get an update on new and exciting developments that recently occurred in these different areas.

In planning the 2005 conference we relied heavily on your suggestions to provide pertinent information on the latest most interesting developments form the different disciplines. Thanks to all of you who sent in their suggestion for topics and speakers; we could cover all of the suggested topics in oral presentations (see the program below), there are only so many topics that can be covered in oral presentations during one week. As is customary for GRC conferences, there will be no events scheduled in the afternoon, thus the poster area will provide ample opportunity for additional formal and informal discussions and presentations.