Origin of Life
July13-18, 2003
Bates College, Maine
2:00 pm - 9:00 pm Arrival and check-in
6:00 pm Dinner 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm The
subsurface as an abode and potential cradle for life's origin on Earth and
other bodies in our solar system Discussion
Leader: Michael A. Meyer (Senior Scientist for Astrobiology NASA Headquarters) 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Derek R. Lovely (Univ. of
Massachusetts, Amherst): “Hydrogen-based communities reducing iron or carbon dioxide on ancient and modern Earth” 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm Jack D. Farmer (Arizona
State Univ.) “Exploring for fossil biosignatures in subsurface
hydrothermal deposits” 9.30 pm – TBA Welcome
Mixer
7:30 am - 8:30 am Breakfast 9:00 am - 12:30 pm How
Late/Early Could the Most Recent Common Ancestor Have Lived? Fossil, Molecular and Geological Evidence Discussion
Leader: Stephen J. Mojzsis (University of Colorado,
Boulder) 9:00 am - 10:00 am Christopher H. House (Pennsylvania
State University) “What do gene sequences say about the antiquity of
life?” 10:00 am Coffee Break 10:30 am - 11:30 am Roger E. Summons (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology) “Molecular signatures of Late Archean biota” 11:30 am - 12:30 pm “Tracing life in the earliest terrestrial rock
record ” Mark is unable to come - he picked-up a “bug” on a
recent field trip” – we wish him a speedy recovery. 12:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm Free Time 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm General Poster Session 6:00 pm Dinner 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Weird Life - Possible Alternative Chemistries
for Extraterrestrial Life Discussion Leader: James P. Ferris
(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Steven A. Benner (Univ. of Florida) “Beyond speculation. Synthetic organic chemistry to constrain universal biosignatures and models for the origin of life” 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm Art Weber (SETI Institute) Life at the Bottom of an Evolutionary Biogenesis
7:30 am - 8:30 am Breakfast 9:00 am - 12:30 pm The Early
Atmosphere and Early Archean Environments on Earth
Discussion
Leader: Bruce Runnegar (NASA Astrobiology Institute, Ames Research
Center, Moffett Field, California) 9:00 am - 10:00 am Gary Byerly (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge) “Large meteor impacts on early Earth” 10:00 am Coffee Break 10:30 am - 11:30 am James Farquhar (Univ. of Maryland) “Multiple Sulfur Isotope analyses: Applications for the study of the Earth's early atmosphere, early life, and early environments” 11:30 am - 12:30 pm Alex Pavlov (Univ. of Colorado, Boulder) “Hazy Archean atmosphere. Impact of organic and sulfur aerosols on the Archean environment” 12:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm Free Time 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Poster Session and Discussions
on "What organisms were the founding contributors to the eukaryotic cell and what are the early branching eukaryotes?" Intro Blair Heges (PSU) 6:00 pm Dinner 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm ORIGIN AND AMPLIFICATION OF BIOMOLECULAR CHIRALITY
Discussion Leader: Sandra
Pizzarello (Arizona State Univ.) 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Kenso
Soai (Tokyo University of
Science) “Asymmetric Autocatalysis and The Origins of
Chirality” 8:30 pm - 9:30
pm Dilip K. Kondepudi
(Wake Forest University) “Origin of Biomolecular Asymmetry: What do Theory and Experiments
Tell Us”
7:30 am - 8:30 am Breakfast 9:00 am - 12:30 pm EXTENT OF LATERAL GENE TRANSFER IN EARLY
EVOLUTION Discussion Leader: Janet
L. Siefert (Rice Univ.) 9:00 am - 10:00 am Antonio
Lazcano (Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México) “The search for the last common ancestor: past
imperfect?” 10:00 am Coffee Break 10:30 am - 11:30 am W. Ford
Doolittle (Dalhousie University,
Halifax) “If a Phylogenetic Tree Falls in the Forest ...” 11:30 am - 12:30 pm Gary
Olsen (University of Illinois) “A Tree in the Jungle of Gene Histories: or, Don't Trip
on the Vines” 12:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm Free Time 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Poster Session and
Discussions on "Can we determine the topology and the root of the tree of life in the presence of horizontal gene transfer?" Intro Jim Lake (UCLA) 6:00 pm Dinner 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm SOLAR AND
EXTRASOLAR PLANETS Discussion Leader: Wesley
T. Huntress (Carnegie Institution
of Washington) 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Jack L. Beauchamp (California Institute of Technology) “Exploratory Studies Related to the Origin and Detection of Life in the Environments of Solar and Extrasolar Planets” 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm Paul Butler (Carnegie Institution of Washington) “The Near Term Future of Extrasolar Planet
Research”
7:30 am - 8:30 am Breakfast 9:00 am - 12:30 pm Discussion Leader: Donald
H. Burke ( Indiana Univ.) 9:00 am - 10:00 am Jack W. Szostak (Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School) “TBA
(RNA in vitro evolution, RNA based RNA polymerase,
linking RNA and protein evolution in vitro)” 10:00 am Coffee Break 10:30 am - 11:30 am Peter
Schuster (Universität Wien, Austria) “From RNA
sequences to structures and beyond -- evolution in an RNA model” 11:30 am - 12:30 pm Eugene Koonin
(National Center for Biotechnology Information, NLM, NIH) 12:30 pm Lunch 1:30 pm - 4:00 pm Free Time 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm Poster Session and
Discussions with Focus on Prebiotic Chemistry 6:00 pm Dinner Thursday Evening Lecture 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Louis Lerman (Pteranodon
Ventures and Philipps University, Marburg, FRG) 8.30 pm – 9.30 pm Business Meeting – open to all
registered participants
7:30 am - 8:30 am Breakfast 9:00 am Departure |
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