SUNDAY |
4:00 pm - 8:00 pm | Arrival and Check-in (Office Closed 6:00 pm - 7:45 pm) |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm | Welcome / Introductory Comments by GRC Site Staff |
7:40 pm - 9:30 pm | Did Metal Chemistry Drive Early Events in the History of Life? |
| Discussion Leader: Steve Benner (Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution) |
7:40 pm - 8:20 pm | Günter Wächtershäuser (University North Carolina-Chapel Hill) "Chemical Pre-determination and Directionality in Early Evolution up to the Origin of the Domains Bacteria and Archaea" |
8:20 pm - 8:35 pm | Discussion |
8:35 pm - 9:15 pm | Armen Mulkidjanian (Universität Osnabrück) "Primeval Energetics: From the ZnS-Mediated Photosynthesis to the First Sodium Pumps" |
9:15 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
9:30 pm | Reception |
MONDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
8:30 am | Group Photo |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Deep Carbon Cycle |
| Discussion Leader: John Baross (University of Washington) |
9:00 am - 9:30 am | Norman Sleep (Stanford University) "The Onset of Plate Tectonics on Earth and the Importance of Plate Tectonics to the Origin of Life" |
9:30 am - 9:45 am | Discussion |
9:45 am - 10:15 am | George Cody (Carnegie Institute of Washington) "Abiotic Organic Synthesis Catalyzed by Metals at High Temperature and Pressures" |
10:15 am - 10:30 am | Discussion |
10:30 am - 11:00 am | Coffee Break |
11:00 am - 11:30 am | Tom McCollom (Univ. Colorado) "Microscale Biosignatures:Carbon and Sulfur Cycling in Extreme Environments" |
11:30 am - 11:45 am | Discussion |
11:45 am - 12:15 pm | Martin Schoonen (SUNY-Stony Brook) "Role of Minerals and their defects in prebiotic synthesis" |
12:15 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 8:50 pm | Insights to Early Life from Microbial Geochemistry |
| Discussion Leader: Andy Ellington (University Texas Austin) |
7:30 pm - 8:00 pm | John Baross (University of Washington) "Microbial Ecology of Deep Ocean Environments" |
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm | Discussion |
8:10 pm - 8:40 pm | Carrine Blank (University of Montana) "Freshwater Ancestry in the early Cyanobacteria and Eukaryotic Algae- Implications for Ancient Biogeochemical Processes and the Rise in Atmospheric Oxygen" |
8:40 pm - 8:50 pm | Discussion |
8:50 pm - 9:30 pm | Insights to Early Living Systems |
| Discussion Leader: Pierre-Alan Monnard (University of South Denmark) |
8:50 pm - 9:20 pm | Jan Spitzer (Mallard Creek Polymers Inc.) "The Role of Biomacromolecular Crowding, Ionic Strength, and Physiochemical Gradients in the Complexities of Life Emergence" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
TUESDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Extant and/or Ancient Life on Mars? |
| Discussion Leader: David Des Marais (NASA Ames Research Center) |
9:00 am - 9:30 am | Bethany Ehlmann (Brown University) "Evidence for diverse hydrothermal and weathering environments on ancient (>3.5Ga) Mars from recent orbital observations" |
9:30 am - 9:45 am | Discussion |
9:45 am - 10:15 am | Nicholas J. Tosca (University of Cambridge, England) "Mineralogical Constraints on the History of Martian Water and Implications for Life" |
10:15 am - 10:30 am | Discussion |
10:30 am - 11:00 am | Coffee Break |
11:00 am - 11:30 am | Jennifer Eigenbrode (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) "The Quest for Organic Carbon on Mars" |
11:30 am - 11:45 am | Discussion |
11:45 am - 12:15 pm | Tori Hoehler (NASA Ames Research Center) "Moving Beyond ‘Follow the Water’ Toward a More Comprehensive Approach for Exploring Habitable Martian Environments" |
12:15 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Self Replicating Systems |
| Discussion Leader: Henderson Cleaves (Carnegie Institute of Washington) |
7:30 pm - 8:00 pm | Nicholas Hud (Georgia Institute of Technology ) "The Factors that Control the Folding, Stability, and Assembly of Higher Order Self- Replicating Systems" |
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm | Discussion |
8:10 pm - 8:40 pm | Nicolas Giuseppone (Université Louis Pasteur de Strasbourg, France) "Self-replication and Adaptation Processes in Dynamic Combinatorial Systems" |
8:40 pm - 8:50 pm | Discussion |
8:50 pm - 9:20 pm | Pierre-Alan Monnard (University of South Denmark) "Linking a catalytic reaction to the replication of primitive membranes: A step towards protocell integration" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
WEDNESDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Assembling Living Systems: New Approaches and Challenges |
| Discussion Leader: David Deamer (University of California Santa Cruz) |
9:00 am - 9:30 am | Irene A. Chen (Harvard University) "Information During the Origins of Life" |
9:30 am - 9:45 am | Discussion |
9:45 am - 10:15 am | Anthony Forster (Vanderbilt University Medical Center) "The Genetic Code: Origin, Manipulation, and Transplantation for Minimal Cell Synthesis" |
10:15 am - 10:30 am | Discussion |
10:30 am - 11:00 am | Coffee Break |
11:00 am - 11:30 am | Tetsuya Yomo (Osaka University, Japan) "Self-replication of Genetic Information in Lipid Vesicles" |
11:30 am - 11:45 am | Discussion |
11:45 am - 12:15 pm | Clyde Hutchison (J. Craig Ventner Institute, Rockville MD) "Towards the Synthesis of Life" |
12:15 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm | Early Cellular Life: Properties and Constraints |
| Discussion Leader: Zaida Luthey-Schulten (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) |
7:30 pm - 8:00 pm | Arcady Mushegian (Stowers Institute for Medical Research) "Probabilistic Inference of Gene Content in the Last Universal Common Ancestor of Cellular Life" |
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm | Discussion |
8:10 pm - 8:40 pm | Greg Fournier (University of Connecticut) "Protein evolution before the MRCA: Ancestral Reconstruction, Compositional Analysis, and Functional Specificity" |
8:40 pm - 8:50 pm | Discussion |
8:50 pm - 9:20 pm | Steve Benner (Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution) "Paleomolecular Resurrection- Resurrecting Ancient Proteins" |
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
THURSDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am - 12:30 pm | Origin and Evolution of Translation Machinery |
| Discussion Leader: George E. Fox (University of Houston) |
9:00 am - 9:30 am | Ada Yonath (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel) "The Detection of the Prebiotic Machinery for Peptide Bond Formation within the Contemporary Ribosome" |
9:30 am - 9:45 am | Discussion |
9:45 am - 10:15 am | Loren Williams (Georgia Institute of Technology) "Evolution of the Large Ribosomal Subunit" |
10:15 am - 10:30 am | Discussion |
10:30 am - 11:00 am | Coffee Break |
11:00 am - 11:30 am | Hyman Hartmann (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) "The Origin and Evolution of the Ribosome: The Evolution of the Ribosomal Proteins" |
11:30 am - 11:45 am | Discussion |
11:45 am - 12:15 pm | Zaida Luthey-Schulten (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign) "Molecular Signatures of Ribosomal Evolution" |
12:15 pm - 12:30 pm | Discussion |
12:30 pm | Lunch |
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm | Free Time |
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm | Poster Session |
6:00 pm | Dinner |
7:00 pm - 7:30 pm | Business Meeting |
| (Nominations for the next Vice Chair; Fill out Conference Evaluation Forms; Discuss future Site & Scheduling preferences; Election of the next Vice Chair) |
7:30 pm - 7:50 pm | Student Speaker Selected by Origin of Life GRS Attendees |
7:50 pm - 8:00 pm | Discussion |
8:00 pm - 9:30 pm | RNA World |
| Discussion Leader: Nicholas Hud (Georgia Institute of Technology) |
8:00 pm - 8:40 pm | Andy Ellington (University of Texas Austin) "RNA World- Evolution of Complex Catalysts and Systems" |
8:40 pm - 8:55 pm | Discussion |
8:45 pm - 9:15 pm | Niles Lehman (Portland State University) "Cooperation before selfishness in the RNA World" |
9:15 pm - 9:30 pm | Discussion |
FRIDAY |
7:30 am - 8:30 am | Breakfast |
9:00 am | Depart |