Bridging Disciplinary Perspectives to See Further Into Life's Origins

The theme of the 2016 Origins of Life Gordon Research Conference is crossing disciplinary boundaries.

The research required to understand life's origins occurs at a point where multiple scientific disciplines meet. Chemists, biologists, physicists, geoscientists, planetary scientists, astronomers, meteoriticists, mathematicians and computer scientists are among those contributing to progress. Combining the findings of each discipline into a composite narrative produces multidisciplinary science. The origins research community has come far in this endeavor. More challenging is to extend these connections into true interdisciplinarity, wherein the insights of one research community influence the interpretation of data and questions being asked by others.

The forthcoming Gordon Research Conference will explore this transition, from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity. It will visit the traditional array of topics, from LUCA to the non living universe. It will emphasize, however, speakers whose work crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries. It will create spaces where scientists from different disciplines are challenged to build bridges of knowledge between their respective areas of expertise. The GRC will integrate with the preceding GRS (Gordon Research Seminar) by asking the latter to report forwards where they see important, emerging connections - in presentations, discussion panels and questions to the conference.